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3-D

The biomedicine news section of the MIT Technology Review reported that artificial organs may become more practical thanks to a new 3-D printing technique (see 3-D Printing Blood Vessels into Artificial Tissues Could Eliminate Need for Donor Organs). It seems that materials science breakthroughs are occurring on a regular basis. The MIT team created a patch of tissue containing skin cells with an interwoven biological structural resulting in blood-vessel-like structures. This is the first time that tissue has been made using 3-D printing that includes potentially functional blood vessels embedded among multiple, patterned cell types. The potential of this breakthrough printing method is that it could create an overall architecture of blood vessels that can be placed within artificial tissue with the result that smaller blood vessels will develop along the rest of the tissue. In effect it is a partnership between 3-D printing and biology. We can expect many more developments in this area that will lead to cures previously thought impossible.