- June 14, 2022
- By admin
Manufacturing organs with bioprinting
Understanding 3D printing
Traditional printers, such as the ones you use at home or at work, function in two dimensions. 3D printers bring a new dimension to the equation: depth (z). Instead of distributing ink on paper, they disperse diverse materials—ranging from polymers (including plastics), metal, ceramics, and even chocolate—to ‘print’ an object layer by layer in a process called ‘additive manufacturing. To make a three-dimensional item, you’ll need a blueprint, which is a digital file made with modelling software. The computer-generated model is then transmitted to the printer for printing. The material you’ve chosen (such as plastic) is fed into the device and ready to be heated so it can flow readily from the printer nozzle. The printer head travels up and down, side to side, forward and back as it reads the pattern, depositing successive layers of the chosen material to build up your final product. Each layer becomes solid as it is printed, either by cooling, a chemical reaction (typically triggered by light), or the mixing of two distinct solutions given by the printer head. To produce a sturdy, unified object, new layers cling to the prior one. This method may be used to make almost any form, including moving elements and several layers. Human skin, tissue, and internal organs created artificially may sound like a far-fetched dream, yet much of it is occurring right now, although in its infancy. Advancements in 3D printing, particularly bioprinting, are bringing novel therapeutic and scientific study alternatives in research centres and hospitals all around the world. Bioprinting, in fact, has the potential to be the next big thing in health care and individualised treatment.
Bioprinting: Future of healthcare
‘Bioprinters are similar to 3D printers in nearly every manner except for one. Rather than delivering things like plastic, porcelain, metal, or food, they lay down layers of biomaterial, which may contain living cells, to construct complex structures like blood arteries or skin tissue. Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, which aim to create functioning tissue constructs that imitate natural tissue for the repair and/or replacement of damaged tissues or complete organs, have progressed quickly in recent decades. Traditional tissue engineering procedures, which use scaffolds, growth factors, and cells, have had little success in fabricating complicated 3D structures and in vivo organ regeneration, making them logistically and economically unsuitable for clinical use. In this regard, 3D bioprinting, which is an extended application of additive manufacturing, is now being investigated for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine because it involves a top-down approach of layer-by-layer building of complex tissue, resulting in exact geometries due to the controlled nature of matter deposition with the help of anatomically accurate 3D models of the tissue generated by computer graphics. In a nutshell, the procedure is divided into three stages: preparation, printing, and post-processing. The preparation process entails creating anatomically correct 3D models using computer graphics tools like CAD/CAM and converting them into a stack of 2D layers with user-defined thicknesses that will be fed into the bioprinter for printing. This stage also involved selecting the substance or bio-ink. The printing of the tissues using additive manufacturing techniques is the processing stage. The maturity of the manufactured construct in a bioreaction, as well as its structural and functional characterisation, is referred to as post-processing.
Bioprinting of the human ear is a new achievement
San Antonio surgeons have successfully used a 3D printer to reconstruct an outer ear composed of live cells for a young woman with a congenital ear deformity, more than a quarter-century after scientists first grew a human-like ear on the back of a mouse. The ground breaking transplant was lauded by researchers as a significant step forward in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Medical implants such as airway splints, heart valves, and spinal discs are frequently created using traditional 3D printers that extrude biocompatible polymers. However, the procedure in San Antonio, which was reported last week as part of a clinical trial funded by 3DBio Therapeutics, a Cornell University offshoot, appears to be the first to create a 3D-printed transplant out of living tissues. It’s one thing to bioprint an outer ear with the intention of using it primarily for aesthetic purposes. It’s another thing entirely to design complicated organ systems that must perform vital metabolic and sensory functions. “This bioprinted ear auricle is a significant milestone in the industry,” says Sam Wadsworth, cofounder and chief scientific officer of Aspect Biosystems, a Canadian bioprinted tissue therapies firm. However, the fact that the ear transplant seems to be safe and has good cosmetic results, at least at first, might open the way for future clinical 3D bioprinting applications. Jennifer Lewis, a Harvard University materials scientist who was not involved in the study, agrees.
Reference:
- Agarwal, S., Saha, S., Balla, V. K., Pal, A., Barui, A., & Bodhak, S. (2020). Current Developments in 3D Bioprinting for Tissue and Organ Regeneration–A Review. Frontiers in Mechanical Engineering, 6. https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmech.2020.589171
- Landmark Transplant Turns 3D Bioprinting on Its Ear. (2022, June 7). IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/landmark-tranplant-turns-3d-bioprinting-on-its-ear
- mischa. (2016, February 29). Printing the future: 3D bioprinters and their uses. Curious. https://www.science.org.au/curious/people-medicine/bioprinting