3D Printed Organs Transplant

 Over the last 150 years, the average human lifespan has almost doubled. Most of us don’t have to fight wars, neither are there many plagues going around, so we tend to live longer. However, the older we get the more likely our organs are likely to fail, although many people require new organs even at a young age because of organ damage or loss due disease. When a car breaks down we simply replace the damaged parts and drive on. However, with humans it is a bit more complicated. Right now, if you want a new body part you can only get it from other people. There has been a global shortage of donated organs for many years as the number of people requiring new organs has gone up, but the number of organ donors has remained the same, as people usually don’t like to donate their organs when they are alive. Hundreds of thousands of people die each year due to the shortage of organs and that number will keep growing. But what if we could make our own organs? What if when someone wanted an organ he or she could just have it specially made for them? This will probably sound like science fiction to most people, but in a few years it might come true. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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Background The concept of creating an artificial organ has been around for a while; for over a decade researchers have been trying to fix the major organ shortage crisis and luckily they are getting closer and closer. In the late 90s researchers at the Wake Forest Institute in USA were able to create the protein building blocks required to build human bladders. Then in 2006 they then went on to actually create synthetic human bladders by extracting cells of patients with poor bladder function and were able to cure them with a transplant. Thomas Boland made history by printing and implanting a bladder into a human patient – the first time such a feat had ever been accomplished. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

Complex 3D bio printers didn’t exist back then; all Boland had back then was a standard home inkjet printer. So he had the bright idea to replace the ink in the cartridge with a liquid, containing cells. He then used the same liquid to coat the paper too;he loaded up the printer again and pressed print. Though organs couldn’t exactly be printed using this method, it was a step in the right direction. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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The technology today The technology has progressed in leaps and bounds since Thomas Boland and his homemade bio printer. With the advent of the 3D printing the future of artificial organs look bright. However, a fully functioning complex organ which can be used on a patient has not yet been created; scientists still face a variety of challenges. Today scientists can create ‘mini’ and replica organs which are fully functional for a while but have very short life spans due to inadequate vascular systems. Dummy organs are printed in hospitals and schools to help surgeons and medical students practise. 3D printing is already being used to help patients today with artificial metal and plastic bone structures such as a jaw, hips and even metal knuckles (which can prove to be quite useful in a fight). Printed skin grafts are used today to help people with burnt or damaged skin. Some cosmetic companies use large amounts of 3D printed skin every year to test their products so that their customers don’t have to do it for them. Today there are several independent firms and companies that are working on this technology. The American Healthcare Company, Johnson and Johnson have invested in it heavily; firms such as Organovo are working on creating a fully functioning human liver and were able to transplant printed human liver tissue into a mouse. Sichuan Rovotech in china successfully transplanted a part of a printed human artery into a monkey. Though these may not seem like groundbreaking achievements, they’re baby steps to achieving a bigger goal. Organovo claims they’ll be able to cure chronic liver failure by transplanting printed liver tissue in three to five years − the future really is here! 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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The basics 3D Printed Organs Transplant

Standard 3D printers work by creating layers of the molten plastic or any other substance, till it builds up the desired 3-dimensional shape. Think of it as gluing sheets of paper on top of each other to create a vertical 3D column. A virtual model of the desired structure is first created in computer and the printer then constructs it layer by layer. Using this method the printers can print anything from plastic figurines to shoes to chess pieces to even custom circuit boards.

Though things like organs and tissues aren’t exactly the same, the process to print them is quite similar. To print something, a model is always required so a blueprint of the organ is created through methods such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), or a Computer Tomography Scan (CT scan). These methods help create a virtual 3D model of the organ and help researchers figure out the composition of cells required in different areas of the structure. The cells used are collected from the patient and can be regular or stem cells. These cells are then cultured in the lab and formed into a kind of ‘bio-ink’, which is then formed into structures called spheroids and put into a cartridge, like the way normal ink is stored in a inkjet printer cartridge. A special printer is required for this, since plastic and live cells aren’t exactly the same thing. These printers need to be incredibly sophisticated to be able to print something as complicated as an organ. They cannot put too much pressure on the cells to avoid damaging them while maintaining a moderate temperature so that the cells don’t become denatured (stop working). Once the cells are printed into a structure they don’t just start working as an organ so they cannot be tested yet or be put inside a person; they need to be put into an incubator called a Bioreactor for a certain period of time so the cells can fuse together and start functioning as a single unit. Though the process may seem more or less straightforward, right now it is much more complicated than that and still requires a large amount of human intervention.

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Multiple methods 3D Printed Organs Transplant

There are many methods that can be used for successful bioprinting. It is no longer just a guy toying with his printer; in fact there are teams of researchers working every day to make the process more accurate and efficient. There are two main techniques behind bioprinting, which are indirect and direct printing. Indirect printing involves first printing a sort of a mould or a scaffold into which cells can be placed later. In the early days of the technology these cells had to be placed onto the mould by hand, which was a painstaking and process and limited the complexity of the tissue that could be created. Now, however, with powerful printers and computers this method can be used to create tubes millimetres in diameter. The scaffold is created using collagen which is a biodegradable biomaterial which disappears over time when the cells fuse together. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

In direct printing the bio-ink is directly printed layer by layer to form the structure with gels used to keep the structure in place till the cells fuse together. This method can create more precise structures but is more difficult and requires more time. A combination of these methods can also be used to create a fully functioning and vascularised system − which basically means that the organ will have a network of blood vessels that will allow it to carry nutrients, oxygen, etc., within itself. The indirect method can be used to create the main structure while the direct method can be used to create the finer vessels within. Researchers are trying to make both these methods as precise and effective as possible. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

Along with different methods, different types of printers are also used. Extrusion printers use a syringe to place the bio-ink in layers; these can form very small high-precision structures. Inkjet printers are also used; these are what Boland used to take the very first cellular print. They push bioink by generating small air bubbles to create pressure in a similar method to what a home printer does. In future, however, neither of these methods or printers may be in use, as newer more exciting technologies are being developed that seem to delve deeper into the realm of science fiction. Laser assisted bio-printers are one such example; they involve using a pulsed laser beam to produce pressure bubbles, this method is able is able to provide a high resolution and deliver cells in a more precise way. Though it is not fully usable yet, it may be the primary way to print organs in the future. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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Challenges 3D Printed Organs Transplant

Despite the rapid progress in bio printing in the last decade or so, there are still many challenges faced by researchers. Vascularisation is very important to create an artificial organ; an organ cannot function if it is not vascularised, just as a car cannot function without a fuel intake and an exhaust system. The organs that are printed today are partly vascularised but not to the level that is required for them to function inside a human body. A complex organ such as liver consists of millions and millions of small blood vessels, some of them a few nanometres in diameter (one thousandmillionth of a metre). The complex organs created today have very short life-span and cannot be put inside a living person. No computer software exists today that can fully map an organ like the liver and no printer can yet fully print one. Researchers today also lack the knowledge required of an organ to guess the various different cell compositions needed to create an organ that is identical to one in our bodies. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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Conclusion 3D Printed Organs Transplant

Bio-printing is a very exciting technology. It is a technology that truly has the power to change the world and help the millions suffering today due to the lack of functioning organs. Many challenges still lie ahead and creating a fully functioning organ is still remains a distant dream, but as the rapid progress in the field has shown it is certainly not impossible. With a conservative guess we may only be 5-10 years away from the first artificial organ transplant. Even when it becomes available, probably it won’t solve all the problems related to organ donations we face today, and it would still be very expensive for a long while. 3D Printed Organs Transplant

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