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Bioengineers have devised a revolutionary technique for 3D bioimprinting of organ tissues. The new method allows scientists to recreate intricate vascular networks that mimic the body's natural pathways for blood, air, lymph, and other vital fluids.
"One of the most important barriers to the generation of functional tissue replacements has been our inability to print the complex vascular system capable of providing nutrients to densely populated tissues," said Jordan Miller, research director, professor Bioengineering Assistant at Rice's Brown School of Engineering.
"In addition, our organs actually contain independent vascular networks – such as the airways and blood vessels of the lung or bile ducts and the blood vessels of the liver.These interpenetrating networks are entangled physically and biochemically, and the architecture itself is intimately linked to tissues Our technology is the first bio-printing technology to meet the challenge of multivascularization in a direct and complete way. "
In this context, multivascularization is important because form and function often go hand in hand.
"Tissue engineering is struggling with that for a generation," said Kelly Stevens badistant professor of bioengineering at UW College of Engineering, badistant professor of pathology at the UW School of Medicine and researcher at the UW Institute of Medicine for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cells.
"With this work, we can now ask ourselves better:" If we can print tissues that now look and breathe more than the healthy tissues of our body, will they also behave more functionally like these tissues? "This is an important question because how much will the functions of a bioprintent tissue affect its success as a therapy."
Organs transplants
The case of organ transplantation in a complicated complex of obstacles. First of all, there is a great need in organ transplants that can not be met by human transplantation alone. More than 100,000 people are on the waiting lists for a transplant just in the United States. In addition, those who receive organs may still be rejected and must be on immunosuppressive drugs.
Bio-printing has the potential to solve both of these problems by allowing doctors to print replacement organs from the patient's cells. "We envision that bioprinting will become a major component of medicine in the next two decades," Miller said.
The team's new open-source technology called "stereolithography apparatus for tissue engineering" or SLATE and the results of its tests were very positive.
For example, experiments on the structure mimicking the lungs showed that the tissues were able to handle a similar pulsatile flow and breathing to that of humans without bursting. In addition, red blood cells could absorb oxygen as they pbad through this 3D printed network.
These are not the only experiments undertaken by researchers. The team also implanted 3D-printed mice containing primary liver cells. The result was that the tissues survived the implementation.
Researchers now plan to explore many other options. "We are only at the beginning of our exploration of the architectures found in the human body, "Miller said. We still have a lot to learn. "
The research is on the cover of this week's issue of Science.
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