From 3D printing to bioprinting
Bioprinting has its origins in 3D printing. Generally, 3D printing refers to all technologies that use a process of joining materials, usually layer upon layer, to make objects from data described in a digital 3D model. Though the technology initially had limited applications, it is now a widely recognized manufacturing system that is used across a broad range of industrial sectors. Companies are now 3D printing car parts, education tools like frog dissection kits and even 3D-printed houses. Both the United States Air Force and British Airways are developing ways of 3D printing airplane parts.
In medicine
doctors and researchers use 3D printing for several purposes. It can be used to
generate accurate replicas of a patient’s body part.
In reconstructive and plastic surgeries
implants can be specifically customized for patients using “biomodels” made possible by special software tools.
Human heart valves for instance
are now being 3D printed through several different processes although none have been transplanted into people yet. And there have been significant advances in 3D print methods in areas like dentistry over the past few years.
Bioprinting’s rapid emergence is
built on recent advances in 3D printing techniques to engineer different types of products involving:
biological components
human tissue
more recently, vaccines
While bioprinting is not entirely a new field because it is derived from general 3D printing principles, it is a novel concept for legal and regulatory purposes. And that is where the field could get tripped up if regulators cannot decide how to approach it.
State of the art in bioprinting
Scientists are still far from accomplishing 3D-printed organs because it’s incredibly difficult to connect printed structures to the vascular systems that carry life-sustaining blood and lymph throughout our bodies. But they have been successful in printing nonvascularized tissue like certain types of cartilage. They have also been able to produce ceramic and metal scaffolds that support bone tissue by using different types of bioprintable materials, such as gels and certain nanomaterials. A number of promising animal studies, some involving cardiac tissue, blood vessels and skin, suggest that the field is getting closer to its ultimate goal of transplantable organs.
We expect that advancements in bioprinting will increase at a steady pace, even with current technological limitations, potentially improving the lives of many patients.
In 2019 alone
several research teams reported a number of breakthroughs. Bioengineers at Rice and Washington Universities, for example, used hydrogels to successfully print the first series of complex vascular networks. Scientists at Tel Aviv University managed to produce the first 3D-printed heart. It included “cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers” and used cells and biological materials from a human patient. In the United Kingdom, a team from Swansea University developed a bioprinting process to create an artificial bone matrix, using durable, regenerative biomaterial.
The cloneprinting
Though the future looks promising from a technical and scientific perspective, current regulations around bioprinting pose some hurdles. From a conceptual point of view, it is hard to determine what bioprinting effectively is.
A bioprinter is essentially like a 3D printer…for the body. 3D printers have already made waves in the beauty industry
where companies like Mink now allow you to create makeup products in any shade you dream up. Even Smashbox offered 3D-printed lipsticks last year. Now, the recent study in IOPscience journal takes this technology to a new level: The bioprinter combines bioinks to create skin. The bioinks don't contain any "ink" at all. Instead, they're the cellular components of skin, like human plasma, primary human fibroblasts, and keratinocytes. In the same way that cartridges and ink work together to imprint images onto paper, the bioinks are mixed in a way that results in human skin.
So far, this technology can create two types of skin tissue.
The first is just regular skin. This is formed using a stock of generic human cells printed on a mass scale and could be used for, say, testing new beauty products, which could make testing on animals obsolete. The other type of skin tissue is developed with an individual’s own cells, and it would be used therapeutically and in special cases, like as a graft for severe burns or skin conditions. "The outer skin layer provides a protective barrier for our bodies against the environment," explains Joshua Zeichner, dermatologist and director of cosmetic & clinical research in dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. When that outer skin layer is either gone or not functioning properly, you’re at risk for infection and inflammation. Enter the new, lab-made skin. And, if you’re wondering if there’s potential for this synthetic skin to slow signs of aging, the answer is probably. “While the new technology will initially be applied to chronic wounds and burns, it likely will have cosmetic applications in the future in addressing aging skin,” says Zeichner.
What’s especially promising about this isn’t the skin itself, since lab-made human skin isn’t exactly new. (We’re learning so much today!) But it usually takes around three weeks to create enough skin to cover a large wound. The bioprinter, on the other hand, makes it happen in just 35 minutes—with no sacrifice in quality. "The generated skin was very similar to human skin and, furthermore, it was indistinguishable from bilayered dermo-epidermal equivalents, handmade in our laboratories," the authors noted in the article, which is a fancy way of saying it's just as good as any other skin graft materials they'd been using in the past.
European regulatory agencies are currently testing it to see how safe it is for burn patients. If it’s a success, the technology could eventually be used to create more than just skin—think organs and other tissues. (Talk about groundbreaking.) In the meantime, we’ll just be here, doing our best to care for the skin we do have—for now.
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The links
https://www.allure.com/story/3d-printing-skin
https://theconversation.com/3d-printing-of-body-parts-is-coming-fast-but-regulations-are-not-ready-128691
https://www.asme.org/topics-resources/content/3d-bioprinter-prints-healthy-skin-onto-patients-in-minutes
https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printing-skin-the-most-promising-projects/