It is no mystery that acquiring organs can be difficult. Organ donation starts off with the person performing a simple act of consent to be a donor in their state's donor registry. While the process is simple, patients needing these donated organs have to wait in line. And the waiting can take months if not years. 3D printing may be an alternative and much affordable solution.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found a way to improve organ needs. The researchers purchased an ordinary one thousand dollar consumer type 3D printer and hacked it into printing soft raw materials. If we can print chairs, we can probably print organs, Discovery reports.
Adam Feinberg, has released a press statement, that they have been able to take MRI images of coronary arteries and 3D heart images and produced a 3D bioprint of each with astounding resolution and quality using collagen-like soft materials. The associate professor of the Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at CMU said that this will transform medical applications and solutions. Jim Garrett, the Dean of Engineering at CMU says that we should expect to see 3D bioprinting to continue to grow as an important medical application.
