Future of organs? Synthetic tissue built with 3-D printer

photo courtesy of trbimg.com

On April 4th, 2013, Amina Khan wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times describing some new developments in the scientific and medical world. The article, entitled, “Future of organs? Synthetic tissue built with 3-D printer,” describes how scientists have developed a 3-D printer that creates materials that very closely resemble human tissues. The substances used to make this material are actually quite simple. They are networks of water droplets coated in lipids, and will someday be used to replace damaged tissue in living organs. 

The droplets of water consist of lipid bilayers, similar to cell membranes, that allow things to go in and out. Before creating the 3-D printer, this process of creating these water droplets was a tedious and laborious process. Now, since the production of the 3-D printer, it uses a micropipette to squeeze the droplets out, which sped up the process incredibly.

Scientists were surprised by these results. They did not expect that they would be able to use these droplets as tissues. The did not expect that once they could print the droplets that they would so closely resemble human tissues, and also did not expect that they would be able to make them in such an efficient way. Along with replacing human tissue, the synthetic tissue will be able to act as nerve pathways, triggered into contracting like a muscle, and even able to send electrical signals, like a nerve. These tissues will be used to graft onto organs to replace damaged parts, and to grow more cells.

Blog Post Author Taylor Berube from Section 124-28

Works Cited
4, Amina Khan April. "Future of Organs? Synthetic Tissue Built with 3-D Printer." Los Angeles
Times. Los Angeles Times, 04 Apr. 2013. Web. 19 Apr. 2013.