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Scientists have moved closer to creating 3D-powered functioning organs, using a food coloring to create a tangled network of vessels that resemble those that populate the human body.
The team used hydrogel, a polymer gel, to print a pocket of air that mimics a human lung, sending oxygen to the blood cells of nearby vessels. The false lung was able to pulse without splitting.
The work of the team, published in the journal Science and also presented on its cover, showed that smaller structures in the body, such as intravascular valves in the heart and legs, could be printed. Another experiment allowed bioengineers to implant mice with biological impression structures containing hepatic cells, which were strong enough to survive the process.
Kelly Stevens, co-author of the study and assistant professor at the University of Washington, is leading an investigative laboratory on human tissue printing from stem cells. Newsweek"The body contains various networks of" pipes "that provide nutrients to the organs of our body and eliminate waste.
"Many of these pipe networks in the body are entangled, making it very difficult for scientists to reproduce them by 3D printing, and this new method allows us to create multiple entangled pipe networks in 3D printed fabrics.
"We were surprised to see the structural complexity of the features that we could print with this new method."
Projection stereolithography, a 3D printing method that uses light and photoreactive resins to produce objects, was at the center of the work.
The team called the new stereolithography technology for tissue engineering, or SLATE. It prints hydrogels in tissue-like structures layer by layer. The liquid hydrogel is solidified in contact with blue light, which has been absorbed with the help of a food coloring.
One day, the team hopes that 3D printed fabrics will help reduce the waiting list for organ donors, which currently numbers more than 100,000 people in the United States alone.
Dr. Jordan Miller, co-author of the study and assistant professor of bioengineering at the Rice University's Brown School of Engineering, explained in a statement: "With the addition of A multivascular and intravascular structure, we introduce an extensive set of design freedoms for life in engineering.
"We now have the freedom to build many of the complex structures found in the body."
Stevens said in a statement: "With this work, we can now better ask ourselves the following question:" If we can print tissues that look and breathe even more now than the healthy tissues of our body, will they also function more like these fabrics? "
"This is an important issue because how much the functions of a bioprintent tissue will affect its success as a therapy."
Stevens said the liver was a particularly interesting organ to study because it has 500 functions and is probably the most busy organ outside of the brain.
"The complexity of the liver means that there is currently no machine or therapy that can replace all its functions in case of failure. The bio-printed human organs could someday provide this therapy. "
But the team is far from seeing its technology used to print human organs.
Stevens said Newsweek: "Our smallest features are always around 0.3 mm [0.013 inches] in diameter. It's still two orders of magnitude bigger than the size of a typical body cell. We would like to continue to improve our modeling resolution. We believe that this is possible with continuous innovations in the printing method and materials.
"We hope that we will eventually be able to build 3D printed human organs that could be used as a bridge or substitute for organ transplantation.It is an ambitious goal, and we still have work to do. before we get there, but at this point, we are more optimistic than ever that this is a possibility. "
Bing Hu, associate professor in oral health research at the University of Plymouth, said Newsweek: "This study shows significant progress in printable synthetic biomaterials, because a major limitation for the field of 3D bio-printing is that the hydrogel can integrate different types of cells, including endothelial cells, those that line the body. inner surface of the blood vessels. .
"The materials and techniques developed in the study offer new possibilities for the tissue / organ regeneration design strategy, particularly because of the vascular structures formed in materials. I look forward to seeing the reported technologies applied in areas of craniofacial research such as regeneration of salivary glands and teeth. "
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