The Bioprinting Industry at a Glance

When I first chose to take this Digital Making course, I had no experience with Design or 3D printing. I knew 3D printing technology was becoming more advanced and accessible, so I enrolled in the course to learn more about the technology itself and its impact on different industries. In the first few weeks of class, I researched topics related to Digital Making in order to expand my knowledge of the field. One aspect of Digital Making I found very interesting was Bioprinting. Not only did the possibility of printing something living blow my mind, but I realized that this could have a drastic effect on the Medical industry. Thus, I chose to conduct further research on the Bioprinting industry: what has already been accomplished and where the industry is headed.

What has already been accomplished

The greatest opportunity I see with Bioprinting is organ transplants. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, “154,324 patients waiting for a [transplant] in the United States alone in 2009. Among them, only 27,996 patients received organ transplantation and 8,863 patients died while they were still on the waiting list.” If Bioprinting becomes more accessible in the near future, it will drastically decrease these numbers due to more available and cheaper organs. Thus, hundreds, if not thousands, of lives could be saved each year in the United States.

Some phenomenal work is already being done in this field. In Poland, researchers are working on printing an artificial pancreas. The goal of this research is to create a functioning pancreas that will help those who struggle with diabetes. With an increasing rate of diabetes and thus more transplants, this bionic pancreas would affect thousands, if not millions, of people and save countless lives.

Another recent advancement is a Korean company, Rokit Healthcare, is testing a new method for treating lesions through skin grafts. The method involves using a patient’s autologous tissues and cells to then print a graft. Once the graft is printed, the doctors will place it on the patient’s wound and the skin cell will regenerate. Additionally, researchers in the industry have successfully printed DNA molecules onto glass slides utilizing inkjet printers. Inkjet printers have also been used in cartilage repairs and other types of cells.

However, there are still some obstacles to overcome with inkjet bioprinting. For example, the high heat of the nozzle may over-dry the cells. One approach to overcome this obstacle is to prepare the bioink in a water-based solution to prevent drying and clogging of the nozzle. This method of tissue engineering research is also very expensive and time-consuming, which makes it not very feasible. Moreover, there is the possibility that cells could be damaged in the printing process. Small nozzle sizes necessary for high resolution printing puts more stress on the cells. However, controlling the concentration of cells in the bioink allows researchers to control the number of cells in each ink drop, which could help minimize cell damage.

The future of bioprinting

Returning to the idea of solving the organ donor shortage issue, Dr. Anthony Atala, the Director of the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, is a leader in this area. He gave a TED talk in 2011 where he introduced a printer that could print a working kidney. Today, the kidney still has not been successfully transplanted into a human, but Dr. Atala stated that his lab’s research “has shown that 3D printed bone, muscle and cartilage structures, when implanted in animals, succeed in creating a system of nerves and blood vessels that integrate into the body.” However, this research is still being conducted and is not ready to try on patients.

The possibilities of bioprinting in the future are endless. Currently, most research is in the experimental phase. Living cells, tissues, and organs have been printed, but they are not yet in the stage of surgically implanting them into human bodies. There have been successful transplants in animals, but not humans yet. Because the industry is still in the Introduction phase of the industry life cycle, I predict that within the next ten years, successful transplants of different types of organs will take place and bioprinting will become more widely used once it is approved by the FDA.

Impact on the medical field as a whole

As further research on bioprinting is conducted in the forthcoming years, bioprinting will become more advanced and common. This will increase the availability of now-scarce organs and decrease the cost of transplants. Furthermore, companies are starting to partner together to conduct more research. For example, L’Oreal and Organovo, a 3D bioprinting company based in San Francisco, teamed up to explore 3D printed skins for cosmetics testing.

In addition to printing living cells and tissues, medical professionals have successfully printed body parts out of other materials and implanted them into people’s bodies. One recent success story is Professor Mashudu Tshifularo and his team of surgeons in South Africa have implanted a 3D-printed middle ear. This landmark operation consisted of the hammer, anvil, and stirrup ossicles that were 3D printed with titanium. Professor Tshifularo stated that “The operation went fantastically well and we are very excited.” Thus, it is evident that 3D printing is the future of the medical industry, whether the materials being printed are living or not.