Breakthrough in 3D printing replacement organs

As the techniques of additive manufacturing (better known as 3D printing) develop, bioengineers have been increasingly interested in the possibility of using it to manufacture replacement organs out of cultured cells, which could considerably ease pressures on demand for transplant organs, and also reduce the risk of rejection if the patient’s own cells are used as the raw material.

A major roadblock in development of these techniques has been the production of the network of vessels which supply and circulate blood, lymph, air, and other fluids to the organs. A team at Rice University in Houston, Texas, is now claiming to have made progress towards solving this problem, as they explain a paper in Science and in the video below.

“Our organs actually contain independent vascular networks — like the airways and blood vessels of the lung or the bile ducts and blood vessels in the liver. These interpenetrating networks are physically and biochemically entangled, and the architecture itself is intimately related to tissue function. Ours is the first bioprinting technology that addresses the challenge of multivascularsation in a direct and comprehensive way,” said Jordan Miller of Rice University, who co-led the project with Kelly Stevens of the University of Washington.