The great hope of transplant surgeons is that they will, one day, be able to order replacement body parts on demand. At the moment, a patient may wait months, sometimes years, for an organ from a suitable donor. During that time his condition may worsen. He may even die. The ability to make organs as they are needed would not only relieve suffering but also save lives. And that possibility may be closer with the arrival of the first commercial 3D bio-printer for manufacturing human tissue and organs. The new machine, which costs around $200,000, has been developed by Organovo, a company in San Diego that specialises in regenerative medicine, and Invetech, an engineering and automation firm in Melbourne, Australia. One of Organovo’s founders, Gabor Forgacs of the University of Missouri, developed the prototype on which the new 3D bio-printer is based. The first production models will soon be delivered to research groups which, like Dr Forgacs’s, are studying ways to produce tissue and organs for repair and replacement. At present much of this work is done by hand or by adapting existing instruments and devices. To start with, only simple tissues, such as skin, muscle and short […]
Sunday, February 21st, 2010
Making A Bit Of Me: A Machine That Prints Organs Is Coming To Market
Author:
Source: The Economist (U.K.)
Publication Date: Feb 18th 2010
Link: Making A Bit Of Me: A Machine That Prints Organs Is Coming To Market
Source: The Economist (U.K.)
Publication Date: Feb 18th 2010
Link: Making A Bit Of Me: A Machine That Prints Organs Is Coming To Market
Stephan: This is the future; this is why we have to get over the barrier of the illness profit model and create a real healthcare system. Otherwise this will be a system in which the rich have one system and the great mass of those less affluent will be limited to another.