Special 3-D printer can make muscles, cartilage and bones

Scientists will soon be able to produce a complete human ear
The development of 3-D printers allows us to produce many useful items. For example, we can produce toys, mobile phone cases and other things. Soon, 3-D pressure could also help us replace lost body parts. Scientists from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have already tried to make a complete human ear.
Medicine has made tremendous progress in recent decades. Some scientists even tried to make a human ear with a 3-D printer. So far, researchers have already been able to create bones, muscles and cartilage templates that have been implanted in animals. These were accepted by the body of the experimental animals. The physicians of the "Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine" published the results of their study in the journal "Nature Biotechnology".

3-D printer in medicine. Image: yezry - fotolia

Integrated tissue and organ pressure system could revolutionize medicine in the future
Scientists are soon able to make a complete ear with a 3-D printer. Previously, such artificial ears were already implanted in laboratory animals, explain the doctors. Now the researchers want to print a human ear. It is a big challenge to create tissue on a human scale through 3-D printing. Bigger tissue needs extra nutrition Anthony Atala from the "Wake Forest School of Medicine" told the news portal Reuters Health. The research team developed a process they call an integrated tissue and organ pressure system.

This process is also called "ITOP" for short. It creates a network of small channels that feed the printed tissue after it has been implanted in a living animal, the researchers explain. The researchers produced three types of tissue: bone, cartilage, and muscle tissue, which they then transplanted into rats and mice. Five months after implantation, the bone tissue already resembled normal bone, it contained blood vessels and had no dead zones, the doctors report.

New printing process could soon produce solid organs
Human ear implants looked like normal cartilage under the microscope, with blood vessels supplying the outer regions, and no circulation in the interior (as in native cartilage), the researchers say. There were viable cells in the inner areas of the ear. This means that they had received adequate nutrition, the experts said. Results with 3-D printed muscles were equally impressive. The implants look like normal muscles just two weeks after implantation.

It is often frustrating for physicians to require patients to use a plastic or metal part in an operation, even though the medical profession knows that the best replacement would have been the patient's own tissue. Atala. The results of this study may enable us in the future, through the use of 3D printing, to repair defective body parts by patient's proprietary engineered tissue. "We will then use similar strategies to print solid organs," adds the physician. The team has been working on this project for ten years and more research is needed. The scientists are currently investigating longer-term safety so patients can benefit from the artificially manufactured tissue in the future Atala. (As)