Behind scenes of 3D Biologically Ultra-fast printed active organ models

The use of Stereolithography for 3D printing of organ models that comprise live cells have been well modified by the Biomedical Engineers at the Buffalo University. In the quest of creating a new technique which is capable of printing 3D-printed replacement organs within minutes which is 10 to 50 times faster and outstands industry standards has been developed.

Printing with 3D technology is a very slow process in which materials are carefully added to the 3D model with a small needle which produces fine details. For instance, printing the model of a human hand takes almost 6 to 7 hours. This lengthy process creates cellular stress and injury, which constrains the ability to seed the tissues with the live, functioning cells.  The rapid, cell friendly technique developed by the SUNY Buffalo group, takes a different approach that limits damage to live cells, this technique is significant towards creating printed tissues filled with large numbers of live cells. 

Relatively more than a needle stirring across an exterior slowly building the details of the 3D model, the team have developed a system that lets a small 10cm model of a human hand, to come up of a container of liquid in a matter of minutes, instead of hours. The stereolithographic method employs projected light at the bottom of the tank that infiltrates up through the mix of hydrogel and live cells. Rather than one detailed pinpoint at a time, the light polymerizes the hydrogel/cell mixture at exact positions in the model, building complete layers of the model repeatedly. This is a major breakthrough in the field of printing biologically active 3D tissues.

This technique is a combination of hydrogel mix which is highly cell outgoing with the rapid printing process which avoids cells from being held in a cell damaging situation for a long period. The biomedical team with this technology were successful in introducing live cells which remained alive and functional with an enormous majority into their 3D printed tissues. 

The Engineering team by a far site of developing full-sized replacement organs, other than now engineered small models of organs the engineering team successfully used the new method to design tissues comprising internal branching links that imitate blood vessels.  One of the greatest challenges faced by the Bioengineers in creating functional replacement organs is to keep the cells that are within the full-sized printed organs alive. The team noticed their method worked great in terms of creating divided, vessel-like systems to enable delivery of nutrients to cells implanted all over the printed tissue. 

Going a step further the Bio Medical team introduced into their 3D Printed tissues branched canals, live endothelial cells. These endothelial cells stick to the walls of the artificial vasculature expanding to form an endothelial lining similar to that found in actual blood vessels. By upholding the working capability and cell aptitude the researchers are trying to increase the size of the printed tissues. The work is an important step towards the noble, yet potentially reachable goal of many bioengineers-printing replacement organs, a biomedical advance that could save uncountable lives lost because of the universal shortage of donor organs, such as kidneys and livers. 

This basic research on Bio organs helps us to understand human behavior and biology, the foundation to advancing new and better ways in preventing, diagnosing and treating disease. Science or Bioscience is an incredible and unpredictable subject. Every advancement is built on the studies, discoveries, experiments which are done thinking unpredicted ways, many of the present advancements in this field of medical science would not have been possible without the knowledge from previous experiments, studies or researches conducted. 

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