Bioscience News - GEG Tech top picks

A team of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University has published a paper in Science that details a new technique allowing anyone to 3D bioprint tissue scaffolds out of collagen, the major structural protein in the human body. This first-of-its-kind method brings the field of tissue engineering one step closer to being able to 3D print a full-sized, adult human heart.

Soft robotics and 3D printing have allowed a team of researchers from Switzerland to develop an artificial heart that works like the real thing. This proof of concept design was successfully tested in the lab, but it may take a while before it will be ready.

Tissue implants customised for individual patients could soon be produced using a new mobile 3D printer under joint development by Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and homegrown start-up Structo.

 As someone who loves to learn so much, the author of this article pursued stories about 3D printing in education, and reached out to some of the 3D printing community on YouTube.

Organovo CEO Keith Murphy came to the Q2 (FY 2017) analyst and investor call knowing that he would be on the receiving end of some potentially hostile questions. During October shares in the 3D bio-printing company lost almost one third of their value after the company embarked on a new round of equity financing.

Biology is the unparalleled master of additive manufacturing. Observing the formation of biomaterials, like wood or bone, allows biologists and material scientists to see what would be physically possible if we employed complex, multi-component feedstocks and non-equilibrium processes in our own additive manufacturing. Furthermore, while biomimicry of such hierarchical materials would undoubtedly increase the complexity and sophistication of our products, that is only part of the benefit.

Scientists from Case Western Reserve University took a sea slug’s mouth muscle and attached it to two-inch 3-D printed parts to make a “biohybrid robot.” When shocked using electricity, the muscle helps the hybrid crawl forward—though at the not-very-quick speed of 0.4 centimeters a minute.

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Chinese scientists have successfully implanted a 3D printed blood vessel into rhesus monkeys, which could pave the way for printing human organs for transplants. An estimated 1.8 billion people affected with cardiovascular disease can benefit from this medical breakthrough. 

A new, advanced bioprinting laboratory is scheduled to open next year in Europe, the product of a collaboration between the University of Cyprus, NextGene Biosystem, Amur State Medical Academy, and IQDEMY SA Holding. The laboratory will be dedicated to research on tissue engineering through 3D printing for disease treatment.

An Australian hospital is becoming the first to receive a dedicated 3D tissue-printing facility. The new facility will be used to print new cartilage and bone for patients, and is the first step to on-demand organ printing in the hospital of the future.

Ramille Shah at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and her colleagues have developed an ink that can be 3D-printed into bone implants that are robust but ultra-elastic, allowing surgeons to cut and manipulate them in the operating theatre to form the perfect shape.

 A team of Danish researchers from Aarhus University  are showing in a new study how even a simple desktop 3D printer can increase a scientist’s understanding of anatomy of not just humans and patients, but also of animals of all shapes and sizes, and even of incomplete fossils.

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