Then the researchers followed the patients for eight years At the end of this period they Doctors created a scaffold from a new type of plastic and added found that the young women had healthy vaginas with no abnormalities the patient's cells to create the first synthetic windpipe New findings continue to emerge in the field of organ development From surgeons in Sweden who developed the first synthetic windpipe transplanted in a cancer patient to future plans to transplant lab grown penises in patients who have penile cancer traumatic injury or were born with abnormalities there is seemingly no end to the possibilities in the field Creating organs such as skin windpipes bladders and vaginas were huge successes in the field but the biggest research challenges lie ahead The complexities of these flat or saclike organs pale in comparison to solid organs such as kidneys lungs the heart and the liver Creating the intricate network of blood vessels necessary to keep these organs alive has proven an enormous challenge for scientists Three Dimensional Printing Many scientists believe the real future of organ generation lies in three dimensional printing Three dimensional objects begin as a digital file Successive layers of material in this case human cells are printed or laid down This bio ink is layered onto a base material such as a gel or a sugar Once the organ has been printed it is placed in a bioreactor before being transplanted into a patient Three dimensional printing has produced bones ears windpipes a jawbone and blood vessels But researchers around the world are setting their sights even higher bioprinting a solid organ First on their wish list A kidney 10
This nonfunctioning liver was created using a three dimensional printer Kidneys are one of the most challenging organs to develop but they have the greatest potential for saving lives More than 80 percent of patients on the US organ transplant waiting list need a kidney That s more than 100 000 people Yet in 2014 only approximately 17 000 kidney transplants took place in the United States Developing the field of three dimensional printing and bioengineering organs to fill this gap is crucial Replacing donor organs with lab grown ones has the potential to revolutionize the practice of medicine Challenges for 3 D Printing The biggest challenge for printing a kidney is creating the intricate network of blood vessels including veins arteries and tiny capillaries The network carries nutrients throughout the kidney and filters out waste Without this network of channels the kidney will not function 12
Capillaries can be as small as a few microns wide Living Ink A micron is one millionth of a meter For reference a In 2002 medical researcher Dr human hair is approximately 100 microns in diameter Even the highest resolution printers are currently unable to create structures that won't collapse in on themselves It's particularly difficult given that these tiny structures are often printed onto a soft gel which doesn't offer much support Thomas Boland began tinkering with the printer in his lab at Clemson University At the time printers had been successfully printing genes but none had printed other biomateri Boland and his team reconfigured a regular desktop printer to print with E coli bacteria then moved on to larger mammalian cells Printing with bio ink involves depositing drops of living cells or other biomaterials onto a base material such as a gel or sugar multiple ink cartridges can be used to deposit different cell types such as organs specific cells or blood vessel cells After the organ has been bioprinted it put into a bioreactor to finish growing before it is transplanted However in the summer of 2014 researchers from Harvard and the University of Sydney announced they had successfully created a network of functional capillaries using three dimensional printing technology The researchers developed tiny fibers that served as the mold for the network of blood vessels The structure was then covered with a protein based material that became solid when a light was shone on it When the fibers were removed a network of tiny channels coated with cells remained Within a week capillaries were formed This latest finding is likely to have huge implications for organ development The Cutting Edge of Medicine Human life expectancy has doubled over the past 150 years As humanity ages we face new and unforeseen medical challenges But technology has transformed the practice of medicine 13
