US researchers 3D print viable human tissue

Whilst a number of groups have already demonstrated the use of 3D printing to build living tissue constructs in the shape of human organs these have lacked the cellular density and organ-level functions required for them to be used in organ repair and replacement.

The new so-called SWIFT technique (sacrificial writing into functional tissue), developed by researchers from Harvard's Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), is claimed to overcome that hurdle by 3D printing vascular channels into living matrices composed of stem-cell-derived organ building blocks (OBBs). The group, which reports its research in the journal Science Advances, claims that the process can be used to produce viable, organ-specific tissues with high cell density and function.

"This is an entirely new paradigm for tissue fabrication," said Wyss Institute researcher and co author of the paper Mark Skylar-Scott. "Rather than trying to 3D-print an entire organ's worth of cells, SWIFT focuses on only printing the vessels necessary to support a living tissue construct that contains large quantities of OBBs, which may ultimately be used therapeutically to repair and replace human organs with lab-grown versions containing patients' own cells."