Bioprinting of nasal cartilage – quickly and efficiently
You can print nasal cartilage on a 3D printer in 16 minutes
from the patient's own cells
Geektimes, jeston based on ETH Zurich: Nose made by bioprintersA group of employees of the Swiss Higher School of Technology (ETH) has developed a technique for creating human cartilage tissue using a 3D printer.
In addition to the fact that the cartilage model can be obtained in a relatively short time, the peculiarity of the technology is that the model is formed from the patient's own cells. Due to this, various problems of incompatibility of biological tissues disappear when transplanting a printed model. And in the case of cartilage implantation in a "prominent place", then important cosmetic problems are completely eliminated due to the fact that related tissues are transplanted.
The bio-3D printer used by engineers is a specially computer-controlled disk, on the edges of which eight syringes are impaled. The disk rotates over a special platform, moving the syringes to the right place in the workspace. They are filled with a special biological suspension, the consistency of which resembles ordinary toothpaste. Syringes with high accuracy squeeze out doses of suspension onto the platform, layer by layer "printing" the model. To control the printer disk, a 3D modeling program is used, in which the model itself is formed for printing. Everything happens quickly: printing cartilage for the nose takes 16 minutes.
3D printer behind nose printing
The printing material is prepared in the laboratory using cartilage tissue cells taken directly from the patient: from knee cartilage or ear. It is a biopolymer with which syringes are filled. The model printed from it is transplanted to the patient. After several months, the biopolymer degrades and breaks down under the influence of growing cartilage cells. The observed cosmetic effect is strikingly different from similar approaches when a silicone nasal prosthesis is implanted.
In the same way, it is possible to approach the treatment of diseases associated not only with injuries, but also with the wear of cartilage in the human body. Chondromalacia is a change in cartilage tissue, which is characterized by loss of elasticity and its softening. Such symptoms are typical for athletes or for people experiencing serious physical exertion.
The head of the ETH scientific program says that about 80 different research groups around the world are working on the problem of bioprinting. And although printing human cartilage is one of the simplest tasks, progress in this area is encouraging.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru23.03.2015