Bioengineers Discovered New Breakthrough Technique To 3D Bioprint Organs

Anita - May 08, 2019

Bioengineers have conceived of a breakthrough technique for 3D bioprinting organ tissues, allowing doctors to create extremely entangled vascular networks.

A breakthrough method to 3D print living tissues has been found by bioengineers. This technique helps scientists reproduce complicated vascular networks which are similar to the natural passageways of the body for lymph, air, blood and other vital fluids.

As per Jordan Miller, Head of Research and Bioengineering Assistant Professor from Rice’s Brown School of Engineering:

He continued:

Multivascularization plays an important role in this situation since function and form often go hand in hand.

Kelly Stevens, an investigator from the University of Washington Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (ISCRM) and assistant professor of bioengineering from UW College of Engineering, said.:

Transplanting organs business has been facing a lot of challenges. Initially, human transplants are impossible to meet a huge demand for organ transplants. In the U.S alone, on the transplant waiting lists, there are over 100,000 people who are still waiting. Moreover, patients who went through a transplant may still suffer from organ rejection and need to take drugs from immune suppression.

Bioprinting could theoretically handle above-mentioned problems by letting doctors produce 3D printed organs from the cells of a patient. Miller said:

In addition, the team also created a new open-source tech called "stereolithography apparatus for tissue engineering," or SLATE. This technology has been tested several times and yielded positive results.

For example, lung-mimicking structure tests showed that the tested tissues were strong enough to not burst during blood flow as well as pulsatile breathing. Besides, red blood cells are able to absorb oxygen when flowing through this complex 3D printed vascular network.

The researcher team not only carried out these above tests but also put 3D-printed tissues containing main liver cells into mice. These tissues ultimately survived following the implementation.

They now aim to explore more options. Miller explained: