Artificial eyes, plastic skulls: 3-D printing the human body
By: Meera SenthilingamPublished: April 17, 2014
Summary: 3-D printing has made tremendous progress in the 21st century. 3-D scanning technologies along with thermoplastics and organic inks have enabled the bioprinting of many human organs to be used for a wide range of medical conditions. Doctors at a medical university in Holland have successfully completed their first surgery in which they completely replaced a patients skull with a plastic version that was 3-D printed. The disorder made the patient's skull 5cm thick which caused her to lose her vision and would have ultimately killed her. But this operation saved her and the patient regained her vision. Mass production of printed prosthetic eyes has also successfully made progress in UK. The aim of this is to produce more affordable prosthetic eyes for people in poor countries that have reportedly been showing interest in this project. Production of facial prostheses like noses and ears has also been making progress. 3-D facial scans of patients are used to print prosthetics using materials closely matching the ones present in the patient's original nose or ear. Synthetic skin is being manufactured to replace a patient's burnt skin. It is designed to have the enzymes and materials that a natural skin cell contains and to match the patient's skin tone as closely as possible. Thermoplastics helped the development of printable hands. A team in South Africa is creating functional, affordable prosthetic fingers for use by combining the printing of the thermoplastic with stainless steel digits to make a fully functional finger. The bioprinting of human bone implants is one of the more established fields of 3-D printing. The structure was printed using the important mineral- calcium phosphate and has successfully been tested in animals. The development of all these different types of printable organs has made lives of people living with diseases and lost/malfunctioning body parts much easier at an affordable price.
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/17/tech/innovation/artificial-eyes-3d-printing-body/
Relevance: We have studied the different organs in the body and the important purposes they serve. We have also learned about the important vitamins, minerals and proteins in the body that are essential to its function. When printable organs are manufactured, the scientists also make sure they use organic inks that contain the materials important to the body's function to print them. This way the body of a human with prosthetic or 3-D printed limbs and organs can have the same, normal functions as a normal, healthy human body. We also learned about the structure of the eye and ear which are essential to their functions. It is important for scientists and researchers to properly study the structure of these organs to manufacture them using bioprinting so that the prosthetic organs used with the patient have the same functions as a natural eye or ear.
Once transplanted, how do these printed organs function like the original? In other words if one were to print a hand how would the hand function like a normal hand?
ReplyDeleteBiotechnology and 3-D printing of organs has made it possible for the prosthetic/printed organ to function exactly like the original by mimicking the structure of the organ accurately. The structure plays a key role in the function, so in your example of a hand, the technology would enable the hand to move and fingers to function just like they would in a normal hand because the structures of both hands are the same. Also, using organic inks etc. to incorporate the enzymes and natural materials that the original cells in a particular organ contain allow the printed organ to function as normally as possible. These enzymes, proteins etc. created by organic inks enable the cells in the printed organ to perform important cellular functions just like they would in the original organ.
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