“Living body parts, hot off the printer” is the headline of an article by Bonnie Berkowitz in the Washington Post, May 10, 2011. The article details how scientists are making living tissue with three-dimensional printers. These machines work in similar ways to ordinary desktop printers — the first bioprinters were jury-rigged desktop inkjet printers — but they stack up layers of living material rather than ink. Dentists, jewelers, machinists, and even chocolatiers have been using this technology for almost 20 years.
While this technology is years, and perhaps decades, away from producing complex organs, scientists have already printed skin and vertebral disks, and actually placed them into living (not human) bodies.
Anticipated future uses for bioprinting include drug and clinical trial testing that would eliminate the drawn-out, trial-and-error process involving humans.
To read the full article, click here.
