Collected from: YouTube - Bioprinting
Like an inkjet printer, biological materials can be printed at home - SmartPlanet
[...]Vladimir Mironov envisions a day when doctors might be able to print out new skin for a burn victim or print out a new organ for patients awaiting a kidney transplant. Mironov of the Medical University of South Carolina said he made the printer run on an open-source platform called Fab@Home. It could potentially print biological materials for surgical implants or print out robotic parts for cosmetic testing so animals don’t need to be used.[...]
The printed material can’t really be implanted in humans yet, Mironov said, adding that more animal tests are needed. But imagine if you could take cells from a donor, culture them and put them into an ink and basically grow a new organ. This would avoid rejection issues associated with transplants and eliminate the need for a synthetic implant.
At the press conference, the device printed a silicon model of a human ear cartilage. It took about 20 minutes to print out an object shaped like an ear.
The object can be printed layer-by-layer. Once it is incubated, it can be implanted.
Collected from: Session: Bioprinting: A Future of Regenerative Medicine (2011 AAAS Annual Meeting (17-21 February 2011))
Collected from: YouTube - Bioprinting demonstration
Collected from: BBC News - 'Printing' human organs with 3D bio-printer
BBC News - 'Printing out' new ears and skin
Hod Lipson: 'People have been trying to expand the range of materials that can be fabricated using a 3D printer'
The next step in the 3D printing revolution may be body parts including cartilage, bone and even skin.Three-dimensional printing is a technique for making solid objects with devices not unlike a computer printer, building up line by line, and then vertically layer by layer.
While the approach works with polymers and plastics, the raw ingredients of 3D printing have been recently branching out significantly.
The printers have been co-opted even to make foods, and do-it-yourself biology experiments dubbed "garage biotech" - and has most recently been employed to repair a casting of Rodin's sculpture The Thinker that was damaged in a botched robbery.
Collected from: BBC News - 'Printing out' new ears and skin
Update 31 Januari 2012:
3D printer and living "ink" create cartilage - YouTube
Lawrence Bonassar, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering, describes a cutting-edge process he has developed in which he uses a 3D Printer and "ink" composed of living cells to create body parts such as ears.
Related
