Inkjet Printer Prints out Human Skin

Anonymous Award writes "Scientists at the University of Manchester in the UK have developed a type of inkjet printer that can print human cells. The scientists claim that it will be possible to print 'made-to-measure' tissue and bones to be grown simply by inputting their dimensions into a computer. But that's not all, the printer's creator claims that the potential of his team's discovery is enormous: 'You could print the scaffolding to create an organ in a day,' well, one day maybe. Where could this technology lead in a 100 years I wonder? Could it lead to a fax machine for complete living organisms?"

Comments

Leatherface the humane

[Anonymous Coward]

OK, so we now have a way to make non-cow killing leathers. So when will it be that I can get my couch covered in human skin or a nice purse?

Beam Me Up, Mr. Scot

[ackthpt]

Where could this technology lead in a 100 years I wonder? Could it lead to a fax machine for complete living organisms?"

This was one of the theories exlained to me, years ago in a physics class on how matter transportation may be accomplished...reconstructing by layers.

The downside was you had to be destroyed to find out what you were made of in order to reassemble you.

Re:Beam Me Up, Mr. Scot

[Greyfox]

Fortunately this will not discourage Japan and South Korea in the slightest.

What will really be amusing (If you're evil and like chaos and stuff) will be when (and it will be WHEN, not if) Congress bans the various cures that Japan and South Korea have discovered for things like paralysis, parkinson's disease and diabetes. I'm sure the shit will really hit the fan then...

Will we ever see this again?

[SteelV]

This sort of new printer technology always comes up... and fades away again. Remember printers that print "smells" a few years back? What about those 3d-object printers. Sure, they're used in labs somewhere, but when will these things become commercially viable and available?

Re:Great Marketing

[ackthpt]

If you can't afford this skin surgery, you can always get sponsorship from companies like Intel and let the printer print a non-removable "Intel Outside" on your new skin.

Not like people don't already pay $$$ for tatoos of corporate logos.

Just imagine, though, having to build in copyright protection to protect your trademark tan...

You, too, can look like CowboyNeal!

autology

[Doc Ruby]

This is great news in making the reconstruction of tissue cheaper and more reliable through automation. The main enabling tech here is the phase of the process where patient skin cells are harvested, multiplied, and returned to them. They don't necessarily have to wait in a hospital while that labwork is performed. These kinds of autologous donations, donating tissue to oneself, can become much more common.

Personal bloodbank accounts should already be the norm, with risky behaviors insured only when blood is stored; the bank can charge "interest", putting some of the collected blood into the pool, along with aging blood in the accounts. That kind of preemptive storage will be prudent in general, when larger scale economics bring prices down. So I'd put some liver and kidney tissue in the bank when I started drinking, and start growing a replacement when a medical exam showed my original organ on the way out. Sperm or possibly egg cells might turn out to be a good source of stemcells to keep "on file", a hedge against later tumors or other disease/damage.

A lot of the anticipated benefits of "cloning" will be delivered by autologous donation. Most of the tech is already available, for several organs. This inkjet system will harness all that momentum, and perhaps make it available (and affordable) for much less serious health crises. Their combination has the potential to change injuries and disease from crises to mere problems.

Re:Great Marketing

[roseblood]

Speaking of tatoos, people used to "get ink done."

It's ironic that an derivitive of an ink delivery system now lets you "get skin done."

While on the subject of body modification, I think about artistic scarring. Just print up some scarred skin, no pain, no potential infection, no wait time hoping the wound was deep/wide/ragged enough to leave a worthwhile scar. Just slip into your new skin with all the art already in place.

Wow, skin grafts

[grundy]

If you've ever seen a burn victim get skin grafts, this is huge.

They cut the burned tissue off with a long thin sharp knife with a depth gauge. It's just like watching the guy at the Greek deli cut strips off the lamb for a Gyro. Once they've got down to viable tissue, they wrap you up, staple the bandages on (yes right into your flesh like a band flyer on a phone pole)

Then they take this skin shaver and grind little sheets off your ass. Oh, unless of course you really got burned bad, and your ass is toast too. Then hopefully someone who died recently was nice enough to allow skin to be harvested off their dead ass. The skin is then run through this expander thing, that cuts a fishnet pattern into it. This fishnet flesh is then draped over the raw meat and it slowly (and painfully) grows back together.

Now imagine the doctor in the burn center prints off some custom fit sheets of skin for your raw meat. No extra hurts and scars on your already way wounded body. And maybe a reduced chance of infection with the graft. I hope they can make something workable out of this.

Nice jokes

[tmortn]

But there is some serious change in the wind from this kind of tech.

Just printing tissue could be huge. Not just for medicine. But how about you start printing Big macs. No more raising a cow. Just harvest some cells and start a culture farm that in turn prints out big mac patties based on muscle tissue of the approprite parts.

Print any kind of meat. Or other food matter. No mass salughter of animals any more or having to raise them on a massive scale.

Not against animals beint eaten.. Trust me I come from the

"I love animals. try to eat at least one a day"

School of thought. But this would be a boon for a country like Japan where they don't have room to raise large herds of livestock and have to import.

This would also alleviate alot the fears of things like Mad Cow disease. You could also print any kind of cellular matter. Print a healthy microwave dinner in animal shapes for kids in their favorit colors.

Food supplies no longer linked to harvest and weather but linked to energy and the ability to induce cell growth.

That is just one possibility in addition to the cloning and organ possibilities. There was a bit in Pop Sci this month where someone has rigged a supply of cement as an 'ink' to a massive 'ink jet' head on a three D motion scaffolding to print buildings. Imagine a house complete with plumbing and electricity printed in a day or two.

Star Trek hypo sprays. Ink Jet Technology. Already asthma style inhalers with injet dispersal are being eyed as a medicine delivery method over shots and even the possibility of direct atomization in to the blood stream ala hypo spray.

Plastic fast prototyping technology. Print a cell phone cover, Comb, Toothbrush, ziplock bags and any number of other household common items. Slightly more complex would actually be able to print circut boards and buttons. Remote Controls, calculators. Even if the tech never made it to the home it can easily revolutionize manufacturing to an extent not seen since the industrial revolution. "Grandpa did people really used to sit on a assembly line all day long putting widgets together ???" The question there is only speed and economy of scale.

and not only that but the ability to alter the design on the fly without any major retooling. Man it is exciting. Course there is the issue of what the masses of factory workers would do if their jobs were largely eliminated.