Thursday, April 7, 2005
Inkjet Printing of Human Tissues
Filed under: etc.
LiveScience.com reports about a new process of bioengineering human tissues for transplantation:
By manufacturing human skin cells using a printer similar to an inkjet, scientists have taken a significant first step toward generating new skin. The process, which could revolutionize the treatment of major skin wounds, could be ready for clinical trials in five years.Scientists expect to eventually build commercial skin printers for hospital use. Doctors would take cells from a patient's body, multiply them and suspend them in a nutrient-rich liquid similar to ink. A technician would enter measurements of a patient’s wound into a computer and feed the suspended cells into the printer.
The cells would then be seeded on a plastic tissue scaffold, which provides shape and stability to the new piece of skin as it develops. The scaffold would also anchor the perfectly shaped piece of skin when it's applied on the wound, keeping the graft in place until it takes hold.
The scaffold would dissolve naturally over time, just as some stitches do.
"The cells are the patient's own cells, and the object is to reincorporate them into the body," project leader Brian Derby told LiveScience.
Derby heads the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells Project at the University of Manchester in Britain. He said that using a person's own cells is ideal because it will reduce scarring, and patients will not need to take immunosuppressant drugs, as they do with some current skin transplant procedures.
CNET News has more.
(hat tip: Engadget)
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