Not my area of expertise, but a quick perusal of the headlines show a lot of breakthroughs are happening.
3D printed organs, using the patient's own stem cells, has the potential to save many lives, and what is even better, there would be fewer problems of organ rejection afterward.
Summary of the technology HERE. The article starts with the problem of beta cells to treat juvenile diabetes, but then goes on to point out larger possibilities.
Regenerative medicine is a rapidly expanding area of research that deals with repairing or replacing damaged tissues and organs[106].
Tissue engineering may one day put an end to allogenic organ transplantation and the need for immunosuppression. Stem cells are a cornerstone to this process, as they possess the ability to differentiate into nearly any cell type.
Combining the abovementioned research fields with 3D bioprinting will allow for in vitro tissue creation. Bioprinting uses the 3D additive manufacturing process while utilizing biomaterials, growth factors, or different cell types as the printing medium.
in other words, this is predicting what they will might do in the future, not something being done now.
but you might not know that if you only read the headlines, which are full of hype about the need for organs and then discuss breathlessly the latest breakthrough, which if you read the whole thing usually turns out to be at the basic research level.
an example of both cutting edge research (and how headlines obscure what was actually done) can be found in this Med News Today (April 2019) for example says: Scientists "print" 3D heart using patients own tissues.
not until halfway down the article do you find the "heart" they printed was the size of a rabbit's heart.
the full article with technical details here. and had a list of foundations funding the research.
and here is another breathless interview about growing replacement parts: But if you read, it's about replacing the outer ear. That is, skin and cartilege with a blood supply, or maybe just using an inert substance for the cartilege and growing the skin cells over it: in other words, not a bunch of complicated cells that have to be in a certain order to work correctly.
except, of course, old fashioned plastic surgery can do that already (Medscape article, needs registration, discusses how this is done, using old fashioned wedge resections or chondro cutaneous replacement flaps or bilobad flaps).
a more interesting article in Health Europa discusses a real breakthru: 3D kidneys.
But what was actually done is unclear from the article: it implies the printed kidney was used to "plan" the operation, and then the mother's kidney was removed, this kidney then had a "benign" tumor take out and the mom's now repaired kidney was transplanted to the daughter.
so again, the headline exaggerates what was actually done.
and funding of the experiment? partly from axial3D
3D liver transplants however might be in the works too, and the inventers claim they might be ready to start being used by 2020.
well, again not livers, but "liver patches". from Computer world
San Diego-based bio-printing company Organovo has already shown that its 3D printed liver tissue patches have continued to function when implanted into mice. Next step: human beings.sounds like a press release from the company doing the research: and they admit the problem is not the liver cells per se but the blood vessels to keep the cells alive.
then there is the Popular Mechanics article about
printing an organ that mimics lungs.
again, you find if you bother to read the article, that they are actually working on the complicated task of figuring out how to print tiny blood vessels that work.
And the research is still at a very basic level.
research done by Rice Univ and Nervous system Inc.
The latest hype article (from Forbes, via DavidRenekeSpaceblog) is about growing organs in space.
...printing complex structures inside organs has proven difficult in Earth’s gravity so the idea of printing them in microgravity could be a way to overcome those difficulties. Researchers here on Earth have been fabricating biological structures, which are identical to natural structures found in the tissues and organs in the human body, using 3D bioprinters. ...
These structures need a support, or scaffolding, in order to form the desired shapes. But under Earth’s gravity, conventional scaffolding can’t support some of the tiniest, most complex structures, such as the capillaries inside human organs.
The microgravity environment on the International Space Station provides a solution to printing these complex organ structures. The minimal gravity environment removes the need for scaffolding structures to support complex tissue shapes. The Space Station crew is currently testing a BioFabrication Facility(BFF) designed by Techshot to print organ-like tissues in microgravity. They use specialized cassettes that hold the printed tissues for several weeks. This allows the tissues to cohesively form on a cellular level. These tests are one step forward toward manufacturing human organs in space with 3D bioprinting.Yup. Techshot, private company is behind that one too....
so the good news is that there is a lot of research going on out there for printing organs. And a lot of it is funded by for profit companies.
The bad news: so far it's still years in the future, and the fact that for profit companies are hyping these "miracle cures" makes me take some of their claims with a grain of salt.
so should we rejoice that "for profit" companies are getting their hands dirty and using money to push innovative and life saving advanced medical technologies, or should we be wary of their claims?
Answer: both.
Capitalism encourages innovation. and private companies are less burdened with red tape and inertia of government programs.
But unless you are sure that the entrepreneurs are honest, you must be wary of what they claim:
or as the saying goes: Caveat Emptor
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