Slashdot Mirror
Create Living Cells With an Inkjet Printer
MattSparkes writes to tell us New Scientist has an article on the use of inkjet printing technology in creating biological tissue. From the article "An inkjet device that prints tiny 'bio-ink' patterns has been used to simultaneously grow two different tissues from the stem cells of adult mice. Surgeons could one day use the technology to repair various damaged tissues at the same time, the researchers say."
I saw a highschool-aged kid show one of these off at the Florida State Science Fair several years ago. I had heard about the concept prior as well. While it is an interesting idea, it should not be presented as brand-spanking new.
They're not creating cells. They are 'claiming' to have allegedly created tissues by using the inkjet to spray non-differentiated stem cells on to a substrate. Doesn't sound like they're close to selling skin tissue to burn victims yet, though.
The system isn't actually creating living cells. It's laying existing cells down into a pattern to form tissues. The title, "Create Living Cells With an Inkjet Printer" seems to imply that it's putting together molecules to form cells. (Is it "printing" the nucleotide sequences of DNA and RNA, "printing" mitochondria, "printing" amino acid sequences so that they form working 3-dimensional proteins, placing sugars and hormones inside those cells? Is it laying down a thin cell-wall with species-specific proteins embedded in that wall?) The answer is no, it's not doing any of that. We aren't capable of doing that, and even if we were, it would require a massive database of information that's much larger than the data stored in the human genome.