Can 3D Printing be used to make advancements in the medical field? It already is, and you might be the next to benefit from the technology.
We often think of this type of printing as being used for machine parts, technology, and electrical devices. We can easily imagine a plug, screw, or special item for a machine being made layer by layer until the new item is completed. This technology allows specialized parts to be created and used in vehicles, airplanes, homes, appliances, and other tangible items that we use every day.
What we don’t think of is 3D printing being used to help in the medical field, but it certainly is.
Bioprinting is a Real Thing
The ability to print, not grow, but print a body part from the ink is something we have a hard time grasping. It sounds like something out of a horror story gone wrong or what you might have found Dr. Frankenstein working on, but bio-ink is being used to create living cell structures that can be used to replace some small parts of the body. While this technology is extremely new, doctors who turn to this technology are finding 3D printing to be successful.
We May Soon See Entire Organs Printed
Advancements in technology are happening so rapidly that we don’t seem to understand how slowly it might have to go to be used for human tissue. An entire organ has not yet been successfully printed, but other tissues have. While you can’t order up a heart or kidney on the 3D printer, scientists have successfully printed kidney cells, sheets of cardiac tissue that beat like a heart, and some of the elements of a human liver. Don’t expect to solve the organ transplant problem overnight with 3D printing, but in the future, we might be able to have organs printed without waiting for a donor.
Stem Cells May Unlock the Use of Printed Human Tissues
Some stem cells have been bioprinted using 3D printing methods, which could be the key to medical advancements of the future. We know that stem cells have regenerative properties and can reproduce many different kinds of human tissue. These cells are being printed in many research labs to understand what kinds of tissue could be printed in the future. We may find the use of stem cells to be the key that allows the medical field to make the greatest advancements in history.
Skin Cells Have Been Printed for a Decade
The first type of cell to be bioprinted using a 3D printer was skin cells. These cells are needed in almost every surgery and made sense to be the first to make it to the printing process. Medical engineers in Germany have been developing and printing skin cells since 2010 and are working toward skin graft printing. Just imagine the paint that can be avoided for burn and skin cancer victims if they don’t have to go through skin grafts to replace skin on afflicted parts of their bodies.
Experts are Working to Print Bone and Cartilage
Over time, our bones become brittle, wear down, and sometimes need to be replaced. Currently, those replacements are often made of metal and can give recipients some trouble. Imagine if 3D printing processes in the medical field could advance to where bones and cartilage are printed and ready to be used in surgery.
Right now, a Cornell engineer and a team of scientists in Germany are working toward this goal. Some cartilage tissue has been printed, but it was not strong enough to withstand the pressure of a knee or elbow in a human.
The Current Use for 3D Printing; Surgical Tools
Because 3D printing can be used to create a vast number of tools, and the medical field needs specialized tools to get the job done, this was a perfect marriage. Many surgical tools have been printed over the past several years using 3D printers. These tools come out of the printer sterile, cost a lot less than the stainless steel versions, and can be customized for the job at hand. Because of the cost savings, tools that will only be used once can be made without concern.
The Other Side of Medical Research and Printing
Often, scientists will try to grow disease cells to better understand their habits and growth patterns. This is taking place with bioprinted cancer cells that can give us a better understanding of how tumors grow and develop. While we don’t always catch cancer early, when a patient does have cancer, and it’s found earlier, the advancements being made with 3D printing technology could help to save lives in the future. Since cancer is something that has likely touched all of us in one way or another, this research is extremely important.
Heart and Blood Vessels are Being Printed
Another group of German scientists has created blood vessels using artificial biological cells, a 3D inkjet printer, and a laser. The laser was used to mold the vessels into shape to allow them to be properly used. While this research was taking place, another group in Germany is developing methods of heart repair using 3D printed cells. What this group has been working on is a human cell heart patch. The testing on rats has been successful, which gives us a lot of hope since these hearts mimic the properties of a human heart.
3D Printing to the Rescue
Can you imagine the number of lives that might be saved if doctors and scientists could use 3D printing in the medical field to its full extent? As new research and discoveries are made, we may see the first person with a heart transplant with an organ that was printed. We might see skin grafts that are printed and applied directly to the body rather than taking skin from other areas.
Eventually, this technology might give us the keys to curing cancer and saving more lives that would have been lost before the use of 3D printing technology.
