Media contributions
1Media contributions
Title 3D printing offers hope of building human organs from scratch Media name/outlet Financial Times Country/Territory United Kingdom Date 9/12/19 Description Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email [email protected] to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/eabb0e00-9755-11e9-98b9-e38c177b152f Michael Pooler 8 HOURS AGOPrint this page0 One of the most promising areas of regenerative medicine is the nascent field of bioprinting: the manufacture of human organs from scratch. It involves building biological material in laboratories into functional tissue for implantation, in a method not dissimilar to the 3D printing of objects in plastic, layer by layer. Traditional donated transplants leave recipients needing to take drugs to suppress their immune system, which would otherwise reject the unfamiliar cells. Amid a shortage of donors, artificial organs made from a patient’s own cells are seen as the perfect solution and would reduce the risk of rejection, since the tissue is not foreign. Academics and start-up companies in this branch of bioengineering believe that replacement skin, livers and bladders could become a clinical reality in the next couple of decades. Producer/Author Michael Pooler Persons David Hay