A New Biopaper for Organ Printing

Roland Piquepaille writes "Organ printing is an emerging branch of medicine which uses healthy cells to repair a damaged or diseased organ. But as its name implies, this new medical technology needs ink, paper and a printer. Now, a new hydrogel -- or biopaper -- developed at the University of Utah has been selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to speed up this process. This five-year NSF study will initially try to print blood vessels and cardiovascular networks. But its real goal is to build some complex organs, such as livers or kidneys. This technology can potentially help millions of people waiting for transplants."

Comments

How long do you want to live?

[Palal]

This will potentially allow us to live as long as we want. We'd just pop in a new part every time something goes out. The great mystery is the brain transplant.

Arteries will not be simple to print

[Morris Schneiderman]

Starting as a geek with 25 years of software development and project management, I've spent the past year applying that project management experience to looking at the interaction between the heart and the arteries. And I can tell you that arteries are not simple.

First, artery walls are seven (7) layers thick. That's seven distinct types of cells and structures to print.

Second, the old theories viewed arteries merely as passive pipes connecting the heart to the capillaries. But as far back as 1733, Hales understood that the arteries are pumps. He saw them as passive pumps, expanding when blood was pumped into them, and then contracting due to their elastic membranes after each heartbeat. Observations made 50 years ago by McDonald and now being reinterpreted in light of additional data strongly suggests that the arteries are active pumps. (I'll spare you the details, but it adds at least an order of magnitude to the complexity of the 'image'.)

Third, there are at least two sets of nerves that run through the outer wall of the arteries, the sympathetic and parasympathetic. These nerves seem to exert control over the contraction and relaxation of the smooth muscle in the artery wall. We don't yet understand the intricacies of the processes that control the phasing of those contractions and relaxations, but degredation in those control processes seems to be the mechanism behind the development of heart failure. While these nerves will have to be 'printed' and 'wired up' (no USB connections), it's not clear that their connections to the brain are the only contol paths. There may well be other, currently unknown, 'jumpers' that are needed. Closed source software isn't the only thing with undocumented APIs.

So, there are reasons why teflon tubing is not being used as a replacement for arteries. And those reasons will make it hard (but not necessarily impossible) to print arteries. I wish them well. But don't hold your breath. Do take care of your body - it's the only one you have and will continue to be so for quite a while yet.

Morris