[extropy-chat] Printing Organs on Demand

[Giu1i0 Pri5c0]

Wired News<http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,69701,00.html?tw=rss.TOP>:
Led by University of Missouri-Columbia biological physics professor Gabor
Forgacs and aided by a $5 million National Science Foundation grant,
researchers at three universities have developed bio-ink and bio-paper that
could make so-called organ printing <http://organprint.missouri.edu/> a
reality.Here's how it works: A customized milling machine prints a small
sheet of bio-paper. This "paper" is a variable gel composed of modified
gelatin and hyaluronan<http://www.pharmacy.utah.edu/medchem/prestwich/Hyaluronan.html>,
a sugar-rich material. Bio-ink blots -- each a little ball of cellular
material a few hundred microns in diameter -- are then printed onto the
paper. The process is repeated as many times as needed, the sheets stacked
on top of each other.Once the stack is the right size -- maybe two
centimeters' worth of sheets, each containing a ring of blots, for a tube
resembling a blood vessel -- printing stops. The stack is incubated in a
bioreactor, where cells fuse with their neighbors in all directions. The
bio-paper works as a scaffold to support and nurture cells, and should be
eaten away by them or naturally degrade, researchers said.
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