July 2, 2012

"3D-printed sugar network to help grow artificial liver."

"Sugar is a very nice material that can be dissolved away in the presence of living tissue very friendly to biological tissue."
We then surrounded the network with the cells that we would like to be fed by the blood vessels when the tissue is implanted - and once we have this structure of pipes-to-be and tissue, we dissolve away the sugar using water...

"We showed that you can use a 3D printer to print an arbitrary network of vessels for any tissue shape or any network of blood vessels, and then surround them with cells that you would like to create the organ out of" said Prof Bhatia.

23 comments:

Original Mike said...

Faster please.

edutcher said...

Sounds fascinating.

Link, por favor?

Palladian said...

Mmm, sugar liver.

Alex said...

Fucking fantastick! Now I drink hard liquor to my heart's content knowing that Science will take care of me in the end!

bagoh20 said...

Just imagine when organs can be easily replaced, and people only die from accidents. Will everyone hide in their homes afraid to go out? Safety is already tyrannical in our lives. I'm glad I lived before the great motivator and cosmic equalizer was slain.

Kevin said...

Link: http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-18677627

rhhardin said...

My vet says you can use sugar or honey on wounds, though it won't work if the dog can reach it.

Honey has some additional antibiotic property.

Gospace said...

Research such as this ends with Obamacare.

If people get new organs, they live longer. And then consume more healthcare. And more social security.

The only way this will see fruition is if both houses are Republican with Romney in Office January of next year.

Ann Althouse said...

Thanks for the link assist, Kevin.

In the post now. Sorry.

Original Mike said...

"Just imagine when organs can be easily replaced, and people only die from accidents. Will everyone hide in their homes afraid to go out?"

I've wondered this, too. Hard to imagine, but it might be hellish.

Alex said...

Original Mike - why? I can imagine being able to replace your damaged/diseased organs would make life a bit less hellish.

edutcher said...

Gracias, Senora.

And Harold is very right.

Michael K said...

I saw a presentation by a surgical resident at UC, Irvine about 10 years ago on methods of growing artificial organs. Liver is high on the list because it has a simple structure although it does have two circulations, artery and vein. It seems to survive pretty well with one. It grows very rapidly, especially in the young. I once did a 90% liver resection in a 16 year old trauma victim. We did a liver scan 3 weeks later and it was normal. The liver had regenerated.

Cirrhosis screws up the anatomy and the regeneration is chaotic.

Saint Croix said...

If you want to buy a 3-D stock, 3D Systems, ticker DDD. I bought it for my mom a few months ago. Up 26% so far.

Their website is here.

Jay Leno has been printing up car parts in his garage.

It's pretty amazing.

Saint Croix said...

They are probably using a high-end 3-D printer from a French company called Stratasys (SSYS). They make the expensive 3-D printers (six or seven figures).

It's 3-D Systems that is popularizing the concept, though, with their cheap ($3000) model.

Unknown said...

Sounds very cool, what I can understand of it.

Don't tell Nanny Bloomberg, or he'll ban the sugar!

Original Mike said...

@Alex - Because In a World where you're not going to die unless you have an accident, the aversion to having an accident may be overwhelming. Might start to look like a prison.

n.n said...

Alex:

They have already had limited success with regrowing organs. This new technology is not about growing an organ per se, but about a new scaffolding technique which enables structuring the cells to purpose and facilitating its removal.

Ten-year-old girl gets vein grown from her stem cells

While not exactly an organ, it is another example of exploiting adult stems cells from a patient.

Fantastic indeed and it exploits an individual's own cells in their treatment.

Dante said...

Looking forward to curing many of the diseases that are related to organs and their failure. Then there is only cancer to worry about, and who knows how many tens of thousands of processes that can break down, go awry, etc.

It's like the human genome project. Just when you think you've made some major stride forward, you realize only how much you don't know.

Meanwhile, I can think of some practical applications, like giving chief justice Roberts a new brain.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

n.n.,

Every time I read another report like this I get a little jolt of Schadenfreude for the CA voters who passed an initiative funding stem cell research, but prioritizing embryonic stem cell research. It passed on a wave of disapproval of Bush's then-recent decision to forbid Federal funding of research involving the destruction of embryos (as opposed to the use of existing cell lines).

Since then, so far as I can tell, every new development that looks promising has come from adult stem cell research. ESCR has quietly disappeared from the news altogether.

Methadras said...

HA!!! And we are told that sugar is bad for us.

Rusty said...

MIT was pioneering printing metal parts 25 years ago.It is now how some jet engine turbine blades are made.
With the advance of vitreous metal(look it up) in a few years an auto parts store will consist of a printer and a pile of raw material.

Kekoa Pika said...

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