3D bioprinting

It certainly would be great if instead of having to be harvested from a patient's own body, permanent skin grafts could be 3D-printed as needed. Well, we may be getting closer to that point, as scientists have now bioprinted living skin complete with blood vessels.

American researchers have 3D-bioprinted a miniature human heart, using human cardiac cells.

New technology promises to make the 3D-bioprinting process quicker and thus more practical than ever.

The distant scientific objective of 3D printed human organs has now grown a little bit closer, with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University reporting a breakthrough that enabled the printing of full-scale heart components that in some cases functioned similarly to the real thing.

Space travel is conducive to injuries. Now researchers from Dresden Technical University (TUD) have developed a 3D bioprinting method for use in space, creating new skin and bone tissue out of resources that might be available to astronauts.

Although it may be hard to believe that there is already an "established" method of doing something such as 3D-printing biological tissue, there does indeed seem to be one. It utilizes microscale scaffolds – which a newly-developed technique does away with the need for.

3D printing organs is going through some teething issues. Now researchers have found a surprisingly simple answer to the complex problem of printing detailed vascular networks, and shown it off with a dramatic model of a breathing lung that passes oxygen into surrounding blood vessels.

​Although pieces of heart tissue have previously been bioprinted, scientists have now succeeded in creating the world's first 3D-printed vascularized heart to be made from a patient's own biological materials. It's an accomplishment that could pave the way for custom-made replacement organs.

​We've been hearing a lot lately about how living cells can be combined with polymer gels, the mix then being 3D-printed to create biological tissue for use in transplants or experimentation. Such material could soon be getting even more like the real thing, thanks to new ultrasound tech.

To help patch up large wounds that might normally require a skin graft, researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have developed a new bioprinter that can print dual layers of a patient’s own skin directly into a wound.

Prellis Biologics has brought the science fiction dream of printing human organs for transplant a step forward by developing a fast, high-resolution 3D printing technique that can produce living tissue that includes viable blood-carrying capillaries.

​There's a limited supply of donor human corneas, meaning that not everyone who needs an eyesight-saving transplant can get one. As a result, biosynthetic corneas have recently been developed. These could become quicker and easier to produce, as scientists have successfully 3D-printed the things.​