"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." Any time Captain Picard wanted tea time on the Enterprise, he simply spoke into the replicator and made it happen. Now, thanks to 3D printing technology, doctors aren't far from doing the same.
What medical professionals want involves much more than tea. They want to save lives by creating 3D body structures. From pieces of skull for victims of head trauma to sections of skin that can cover up third-degree burns, 3D printers aren't far from erasing the need for organ and tissue donation.
A recent TechCrunch article reported on just how close doctors at Washington State University (WSU) are to printing ceramic bone grafts, custom-made prosthesis and implants that humans can actually use. For bones that bear light loads, the doctors use materials like ceramic made from calcium phosphate compounds. For bones requiring more strength, they print with titanium.
According to Dr. Susmita Bose, WSU's work is an engineering solution to a biological problem. Their printing combines chemistry, materials characterization, materials processing and biological characterization. Some applications are already available. For example, Dr. Amit Bandyopadhyay printed a titanium plate for the skull of a motorcycle crash victim in India using a CAD file.
"Using 3D-printing technology, and optimum material chemistry, one can control the geometry and shape of the scaffold and bone-like material chemistry at the same time," Bose explained. "If you can resorp [sic] the scaffold, then the ultimate result would be for the natural healing to replace the scaffold and need for a second surgery."
In addition to printing with ceramic and titanium, doctors are using cell-based inks to print live tissue. At the University of Missouri-Columbia, Professor Gabor Forgacs prints 2D shapes out of cellular ink into a gel-based mold. Over time, the cells grow together naturally, creating a piece of tissue in the shape of the mold.
Back in April, Forgacs's company, Organovo, created the world's first bioprinted liver tissue. Also, at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM), doctors have printed organs like mouse hearts for pharmaceutical testing. They hope to eventually create fully printed human organs from a patient's own cells. This way, patients won't die from transplant rejection when they have to take organs from a donor.
Away from the medical field, a Columbia, Mo., company called Modern Meadow wants to print meat and leather from lab-grown cattle cells. The company claims that these products made from lab-grown cells use less land, consume less water and require less energy than grazing livestock.
At Cornell, doctors recently made news for printing a human earlobe with a 3D printer. Earlobes are good choices for these procedures because the tissue doesn't require a large blood supply.
Within the next decade, you may be able to receive a bone graft, skin graft or organ transplant using live printed cells. Maybe you'll think twice now before you chuck that toner cartridge against the wall of your cubicle.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
