PRINT NEW SKIN, AND ORGANS
Science fiction seems to be becoming science fact. A team at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina, US, used technology akin to a desktop printer to print new skin — to replace burnt skin. The device, a ‘bio-printer’, employs a laser to size up a patient’s wound and then releases skin cells, spraying them directly on to the affected area.
The bio-printer has only been tested on mice so far but results show that burns heal two weeks faster than normal. Human trials are expected to start within five years. The technique would replace skin grafting, a painful procedure in which skin is taken from one part of the body to cover another. “You could cover the whole body after eight weeks of growing cells,” claims the institute’s director Dr Anthony Atala.
That’s not all. The day is not far when doctors will be able to simply print a new kidney to replace a patient’s diseased one. Scientists around the world are developing techniques that will enable them to produce bones and organs with a 3D inkjet printer. A doctor in Boston grew an engineered bladder from a patient’s muscle cells and a team in London designed a polymer scaffold that was used in the first fully-engineered trachea transplant.
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