There is a new technique being developed that allows different tissues and organs to be printed out. This technique uses printers similar to those found in an office, but have been slightly modified. The biggest modification is instead of ink the printer uses a bio-ink which is made up from components of natural tissue matrix and living cells or gelatin. They have modified the gelatin to stay in liquid form until exposed to heat (37 C) and UV light at which point they can manipulate it to have the same characteristics as the tissue they desire.
The biggest problem as of now is that they can not produce vascularized tissue. The researchers are working with another company to produce blood vessels to incorporate into the tissues so that they can make full organs that can receive nutrients from blood. My question would be: If they could ever produce a fully functioning organ and you needed a transplant, would you want a printed one or an organ from a person?
Article:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131024102038.htm
This is pretty awesome. It's kinda scary how advanced technology is that we can "print" tissue! If I needed a transplant my choice would definitely depend on how far along and how successful these printed organs were. I would want the best outcome possible. However, I'm really not sure that I could afford a printed organ anyways. Now this kinda reminds me of that movie Repo or Repo Men. Scary!
ReplyDeleteA girl in my chemical seminar class did a presentation over this. Pretty cool!
ReplyDeleteI think I would still want my transplant from another human, but I won't know unless desperate times ever calls for desperate measures.
I've actually heard of this before (Thank you Grey's Anatomy) and I thought it was pretty cool! Since they are still working on the kinks for making vascular tissue, I'd probably have to say that I'd go for human if I needed an organ transplant. This could be really useful for skin grafts and similar tissue transplants though. It's not as common for people to donate certain tissues, so this could be really great for patients who really need these types of transplants and grafts!
ReplyDeleteThe whole time I was reading, I was wondering, what this could possibly be used for. It was not until you mentioned needing transplants. I guess this would be a new way of going about transplants, no more waiting on a list, just a matter of hours or however long it takes to create the organ.
ReplyDeleteIf the technology would prove to be safe and effective, then it could be more advantageous than using human donors. Using source tissue from the patient, then the problems of graft versus host disease and other adverse reactions due to donor tissue rejection (and the need for life-long anti-rejection meds) may be eliminated.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that there is a possible method for people who are waiting for donations. Its sad to hear how some patients wait most of their life time till they are matched up with a proper donor. Call me old fashion, but I would still go for the original method of getting a transplant then getting one through this printable method. I'm not too sure how it would react with my body, so I would rather not take the chance.
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