The technology of bioprinting could have as transformative a potential for near future human society as the wheel did for ancient logistics, and the Archimedes screw for farming. Last year, researchers at Princeton University created a functional ear using a modified USD$1,000 ink-jet printer, augmented with the potential to hear radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability, as the tissue was combined with electronics as it was grown. Now, bioprinting pioneers Organovo have announced that they will produce the world’s first functioning human ’3D organ’ this year.
The 3D bioprinting scene is hotting up. The Hanghou University of Science and Technology in Zhejiang Province, China, announced Regenovo in the summer of 2013. Cornell University is working on 3D printed spinal discs, while the University of Iowa has a two-armed 3D bioprinter, which can lay down different types of cells simultaneously.
Printing organs, whether as replacements and augmentations to humans, as food, or as an alternative to animal testing, may in time change the world. The ethical considerations are far from black and white. The ethics of producing artificial organs are not a new phenomena, it was raised when something as (now) common as a heart pacemaker, for example, was developed. The ethics of producing bioprinted human organs however, are more complicated again.
The liver tissue model Organovo intends to release this year is for laboratory research use for medical studies and drug research, something that points to the potential of the end of animal testing. Thus, any imminent hopes for your own 3D printed heart as a birthday present are unlikely to be realized …… yet!
