Inside the Weird World of 3D Printed Body Parts

An anonymous reader writes Last November a news report in Russia Today sent a shudder of excitement through the tech blogs that cover 3D printing: an eccentric Russian provocateur claimed he would this month start printing functioning thyroids. Tech reporter Andrew Leonard set out to fact-check that claim, and along the way discovered an unlikely relationship between a Russian mad scientist and the U.S.'s most advanced, most respected 3d bioprinting companies—TeVido, which aims to 3D print custom nipples, and Organovo, which sells samples of 3D printed liver tissue. In the field of 3D printing, the line between science fiction and peer-reviewed research is very, very thin.

Comments

WWW

[MrKaos]

Inside the Weird Wobbly World of 3D Printed Body Parts

Re:WWW

[wonkey_monkey]

Within the weird world of weplicated wetware widgets.

Once again on the 3d printing bandwagon.

[Rei]

"3d printing" is the latest fad for Slashdotters to obsess over; meanwhile, in the real world, people are just going to use more established solutions. For example, where I work we're making great progress towards CNC-milling a pancreas.

Re:Once again on the 3d printing bandwagon.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Where do you get your pancreas stock? I didn't even see it in the McMaster catalog.
2. How do you fixture THAT?
3. The crystalline structure of cast pancreas is far superior than billet pancreas.

Re:Once again on the 3d printing bandwagon.

[Rei]

1. Alibaba.com. You can get anything there.
2. Semipermanent subplate attached to the table with pin slots, surgical grade titanium plate pinned into position, pancreas stock welded into place with TIG set to the settings for pancreas stock of appropriate thickness (what can't you weld with TIG?)
3. We find the mechanical properties of billet pancreas to be sufficient, and the higher precision and better finish reduce the odds of customer rejection.

The research is very interesting

[rmdingler]

FTA: They're already bioprinting human tissue for drug research, albeit it tiny amounts only guaranteed to live 40 days.

The biggest obstacle to working organs seems to be the inclusion of vasculature to the tissues for sustenance, but that is being worked out.

This seems promising. Financing is an initial hurdle since it's a medical procedure requiring lengthy testing and approval. Investors aren't flocking in for an expected payout of years or decades.

Re:The research is very interesting

[toppavak]

Printed parts are still by far inferior to more conventionally produced alternatives. For organs with 3D architecture, by far the most successful approaches have been to basically seed the relevant cell types in layers on a gel or degradable fiber based scaffold. Anthony Atala's group at Wake Forest (no association, just a fan of their work) has made replacement urethras and bladders among many others that have actually been implanted in patients. I believe the bladder work is currently in a phase II clinical trial on its way to becoming more widely available. Sangeeta Bhatia's group has done amazing work on liver tissue, although their focus has been on laboratory samples for drug testing rather than implantation for the time being. They actually do use a 3D printing approach to their work but only to build a sugar-based scaffold that can dissolve away and leave space for blood vessels to be engineered. The tissue itself is just dumped onto the scaffold in a gel slurry and organizes itself.

I think 3D printing tissues is a rather short-sighted approach to assembling structures whose function and shape is self-organized. The most successful approaches thus far (in terms of having products on the market or organs in people) have been strategies that rely on the intrinsic self-organization of tissues. Even more complex structures such as the colonic epithelium can be generated this way.

Re:3D Printed Phallus

[amiga3D]

Which carries over to the idea of a 3D printed Penis with more girth and length. That should sell.

Re:Custom ... nipples? Actual custom nipples?

[OzPeter]

TeVido, which aims to 3D print custom nipples

Hmmm ... apparently I am unversed in the realm of custom nipples, as I've never conceived of it before. Is this a thing I've been missing?

Why don't you find a breast cancer survivor who has had a mastectomy and ask her about the subject?

Re:Researchers create a 3d printed bandwagon!

[jeffmeden]

progress towards CNC-milling a pancreas.

That's interesting. Where I work we're making progress on human transplants of a web-scale ficas using nothing but red staplers crowd funded via a new meta-material crypto currency based on a Bitcoin NoSQL kernel which solves the pressing problem of laser mounted sharks doxing bio-hackers via Twitter's NSA paper trail.

Ohh, so close. You were "SSL exploit" away from Bingo.

Re:3D Printed Phallus

[omnichad]

Why stop with one?

Re:Custom ... nipples? Actual custom nipples?

[RivenAleem]

Are you suggesting he track down a cancer survivor and ask her to show him her tits? I must say it's not a tactic I've heard working before.

Re:Custom ... nipples? Actual custom nipples?

[lax-goalie]

Actually, replacement nipples could be a huge step forward for women who are facing a mastectomy. Their choices are 1) mastectomy and reconstruction with no nipple, 2) mastectomy and reconstruction with a tattoo where the nipple was, or 3) a "nipple-sparing" mastectomy, which is a much more difficult procedure, carries risks because some tissue gets left behind, isn't always appropriate/possible for women with small breasts, and sometimes fails.

I was dating somebody a few years ago who was diagnosed with breast cancer, and went to most of her surgical consults. (She's fine now; thanks for asking...) Preserving the nipple was a big deal for her, even though there was a good chance that she'd never get sensation back. she went with the nipple sparing option, despite the potential downsides, and was happy with the outcome. (Her summary: "It doesn't look perfect, but it doesn't look deformed, either")

I suspect that if 3D printing of a new nipple was possible for her - and mitigated some of the risks, she might have gone with that.

Re:Custom ... nipples? Actual custom nipples?

[MMC Monster]

If you know a breast cancer survivor personally, they are generally pretty open about those sort of questions.

I had one friend complain about how her plastic surgeon kept on getting the placement of the nipple on the wrong spot. She eventually went to the OR with a smiley face where she wanted the nipple placed.

A second friend said her plastic surgeon kept on pushing for nipple preservation but she was quite content (wouldn't say happy) without one. She did feel less of a woman for a while afterwards, but started feeling better once she started gaining weight back and getting her sex drive back.

Re:I can't wait...

[ClickOnThis]

As the Scarecrow sang: "If I only had a brain...!" - I can't wait 'till they print me a new hippocampus so that I can confidently store long-term memories again!

FTFY

Re:Researchers create a 3d printed bandwagon!

[plover]

"In Soviet Russia, 3D printers print you!"
Turns out that's the headline, not the punchline.