With a 3-D printer, Anthony Atala
and his team at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine created mini
organs, hearts and liver in this case. The
hearts were created by using human skin cells that was reprogrammed to act as heart
cells and were clumped together in a cell culture. The printer then printed
them into the desired shape and size, .25 millimeters.
The scaled down organs was
developed to mimic the function of their life size counterparts and could
eventually be used for testing new treatments and probe the effects of viruses
and chemicals on human tissues.
This approach is being developed to
replace animal testing due the cost of procuring, feeding and sheltering animals
and animal testing doesn’t always produce the desired results that are
applicable to humans. So if human organs and tissue could be reproduced cheaply
in a lab it would be beneficial to drug companies and university for testing
and teaching.
I would enjoy working on the same experiment. I think it would be great to make 3-D human body parts for research or transplants for amputees. The further this experiment and technique gets the cheaper and more readily available this would be. Schools could make perfect replications of the cells or organism that will be needed in a lab instead of keeping and maintaining lab animals.
I would enjoy working on the same experiment. I think it would be great to make 3-D human body parts for research or transplants for amputees. The further this experiment and technique gets the cheaper and more readily available this would be. Schools could make perfect replications of the cells or organism that will be needed in a lab instead of keeping and maintaining lab animals.
Original link: https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn27383-mini-3d-printed-organs-mimic-beating-heart-and-liver/
Another link for a team at Princeton University who is
showing off their 3-D printing ear: http://www.nature.com/news/the-printed-organs-coming-to-a-body-near-you-1.17320#gallery
This article was very interesting. I feel that this new way of testing could lead to positive results for researches, even more so than animal genetic testing. I am curious to see where this research is in a few years and if any major breakthroughs occur. Nice article!
ReplyDeleteSo do I. I think once we can use stem cells and organic material to print organs and body parts we will be able to do better research and testing for humans. Also we could one day print organs or body parts to transplant on a patient that will have no risk of being rejected by their body.
DeleteSo do I. I think once we can use stem cells and organic material to print organs and body parts we will be able to do better research and testing for humans. Also we could one day print organs or body parts to transplant on a patient that will have no risk of being rejected by their body.
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