Corneas Could Be the First Mainstream Application of Bioprinting (ieee.org)

A startup says it can replace donated eyes with 3D-printed corneas. From a report: Here's a futuristic problem that may not have occurred to you: If self-driving cars really catch on and the number of traffic fatalities plunges, so will the number of organs available for transplant. Currently, about 20 percent of donated organs come from people who die in car accidents. Luckily, there's a futuristic solution: 3D-printed organs.

This technology is far from ready for the clinic, as researchers are still trying to figure out how to print out complex tissue structures with blood vessels and nerves. But for one early indicator of progress in this field, look to the eye. Precise Bio, a North Carolina-based startup founded by several professors at the renowned Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, is working on bioprinting tissues for a variety of medical applications. The company just announced that its first products will be for the eye -- starting with a human cornea suitable for transplantation. "We plan to put our printers in eye banks," says Precise Bio CEO Aryeh Batt.

Comments

in Production on a smaller scale

[DrYak]

while it is far from something that you can actually implant into a patient in need of organ transplant, current state of the art is already able to build "organoid":
small structered 3D cell cultures that more or less mimic on a tiny scale some of the structures found in real life natural organs.

These are already useful at this stage for research (mostly pharma as they help investigate better the effects of potential drugs on interacting functional tissues, rather than cells floating freely in a test tube).

i.e.: we're already halfway there, and this halfway is already useful (though it's more "a few percent down the right direction" rather than litteraly *half*way)