Are you wearing a donor wrist band? Well! Take it off. Soon no one will need your organs any-more . ‘Printing‘ the organs is a new technology which can revolutionize all transplantation procedures performed in today’s medical world. Tissue engineering technology or ‘printing’ is a new way of producing human organs by means of computers and organ printers.
Organ Printing or cell printing are very recent ideas which were introduced to the world of biotechnology in 1987. The technology has been rapidly developing ever since. Synthetic blood vessels are the first body-parts which were made by this technology.
Organ Printer
Luke Massee is the first patient who has experienced this new technology successfully. Luke was born with dysfunctional kidneys a condition know as CKD. He was chosen over tens of candidates after 10 years of investigations. His case proved that not only this procedure is possible but also safe and cheap to use.
What is organ printing?
organ printing is a biomedical version of rapid prototyping technology which is based on tissue fluidity. Computer-assisted printers put natural component of an organ together in the right shape and form.
How does it work?
“It’s like making a cake” said Anthony Atala of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine. A 3D scan of the wanted organ is captured first. Then, a sample from the recipient tissue is taken in order to make the organ with the right material. ‘Printer’ starts producing the organ layer by layer in the final step. Thus, the procedure of organ printing can be divided into three main steps: preprocessing, processing and postprocessing. In preprocessing computer-aided design ( CAD) or blue print of the organ is done. in processing step, materials are put together by means of tissue scaffold. Printers play the main role in this step. postprinting is the final step and organ is double checked for functionality.
The progress of the stem cell technology has also greatly contributed to progress of the organ printing technology. Stem cells can be used to produce any organ in the body. They can be used for the tissue culturing and the produced culture can later on be used in producing the organ.
Anthony Atala: Printing a human kidney
Even though there has been one successful case of organ transplantation, there is still a lot not understood about human body and I believe it will take a long time for this technology to become accessible for everyone. And until the day that science can solve every problem about our mysterious bodies it is much wiser to keep your donor wrist band on!
Refrences:
1. Mironov V, Boland T, Trusk T, Forgacs G, Markwald RR. Organ printing: Computer-aided jet-based 3D tissue engineering. Trends Biotechnol. 2003;21(4):157-161.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167779903000337#
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