Scientists have created a 3D-printer to print the human bones and muscles – RIA Novosti

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© Photo: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

© Photo: Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine

MOSCOW, February 15 – RIA Novosti . US bioengineers have created and successfully tested a unique 3D-bioprinter that allows “printing” full copies of the individual bones of the body, hands, ears and cartilage using stem cells and special polymer templates, according to an article published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

“This printing technique tissues and organs is a very serious and important step towards creating a technology that allows to produce oRGAN” spare parts “for our patients. we now have the ability to print full-fledged human organs, to maintain stability. In the future, this technology help us to “print” the tissues and organs suitable for implantation, “- said Anthony Atala (Anthony Atala) from the Institute for regenerative medicine at Wake Forest (USA)

As noted by Atala and his colleagues, one of the main. obstacles to growing organs from stem or “adult” cells is that their “print” is possible only in a thin layer. According to the scientists, when the thickness of the “pie” of the cell is greater than 200 micrometers, the tissue begins to die, because the nutrients and oxygen can not penetrate to such depths without the presence of blood vessels.

The authors solved this problem by creating a a special polymer that allows scientists to stack layers of cells and still maintain a small gap between them. This allowed the cells of future bone, muscle or cartilage to grow in virtually unlimited scale, without experiencing problems with access to food and oxygen.

© Photo: Bernhard Jank, MD, Ott Laboratory, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Regenerative Medicine

Once the body “printed” scientists placed his body in a mouse or human, where he gradually “overgrown” with blood vessels, and the polymer gradually decomposes, giving them a place. In the end, on the site of the workpiece occurs a full body with a desired three-dimensional form and all the necessary tissue types.

As a demonstration of biologists grown bone human mandible using stem cells, as well as “printed” full shell ear, using MRI picture of one of the volunteers as for the print pattern. Both bodies were placed in the rodent body and successfully taken root in it, completely covered from within the vessels

While this technology is not quite ready for medical use -. It remains to be tested in clinical trials, but Atala and his confident colleagues, that they will be able to quickly bring it into medical practice.