The goal of bioprinting healthy, functional organs is driven by the need for organ transplants. More than 100,000 people are on transplant waiting lists in the United States alone, and those who do eventually receive donor organs still face a lifetime of immune-suppressing drugs to prevent organ rejection. Bioprinting has attracted intense interest over the past decade because it could theoretically address both problems by allowing doctors to print replacement organs from a patient’s own cells. A ready supply of functional organs could one day be deployed to treat millions of patients worldwide.
The new innovation allows scientists to create exquisitely entangled vascular networks that mimic the body’s natural passageways for blood, air, lymph and other vital fluids. The research presented in the video is featured on the cover of this week’s issue of Science. It includes a visually stunning proof-of-principle — a hydrogel model of a lung-mimicking air sac in which airways deliver oxygen to surrounding blood vessels. Also reported are experiments to implant bioprinted constructs containing liver cells into mice.
The work was led by bioengineers Jordan Miller of Rice University and Kelly Stevens of the University of Washington (UW) and included 15 collaborators from Rice, UW, Duke University, Rowan University and Nervous System, a design firm in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Read more about it here (Rice University. “Organ bioprinting gets a breath of fresh air: Bioengineers clear major hurdle on path to 3D printing replacement organs.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 May 2019.)
Original paper: Grigoryan, B., Paulsen, S.J., Corbett, D.C., Sazer, D.W., Fortin, C.L., Zaita, A.J., Greenfield, P.T., Calafat, N.J., Gounley, J.P., Ta, A.H. and Johansson, F., 2019. Multivascular networks and functional intravascular topologies within biocompatible hydrogels. Science, 364(6439), pp.458-464.