In this blog, we’ll be reviewing Dr. Robert Goldman’s future predictions regarding 3D PRINT YOUR OWN ORGANS AND MEAT

3D Printable Organs are already in process via 3D “bioprint” organ tissues, a process that involves depositing a “bio-ink” made of cells precisely in layers, resulting in a functional living human tissue for use in the lab. These tissues should be better predictors of drug function than animal models in many cases. In the long-term, this has the potential to pave the way to “printing” human organs, such as kidneys, livers and hearts.

There is a global shortage of organs available for life-saving transplants. In the UK, for example, you can now expect to wait an average of 944 days – more than two-and-a-half years – for a kidney transplant on the NHS. There’s a similar shortage of liver, lungs and other organs. The lack of transplant tissues is estimated to be the leading cause of death in America. Around 900,000 deaths a year, or around one-third of all deaths in the US, could be prevented or delayed by organ or engineered tissue transplants. The demand, simply, is endless.

You die because your organs break. If we can start replacing them, we can extend life. That’s really neat! Erik Gatenholm, Cellink

Bioprinting, as Gatenholm cheerily accepts, is something of a trippy idea and one that raises some ethical concerns. The principles are very similar to conventional 3D printing: you start by using a computer program to make a virtual representation of what you’d like to make and then a printer builds it slice by slice – sometimes around a pre-prepared scaffold – until you have the finished object. But instead of jewellery, little statues or parts for cars, bioprinters offer the potential to create living tissue.

In the beginning, this might mean printing skin or cartilage, which are relatively simple structures and are more straightforward to grow outside the body. Eventually, however, the pioneers of this technology believe they will be able to create complex organs, such as hearts and livers, from scratch. These could then be used in human transplants.

Scientists and commercial companies around the world are working on the project. In fact, something of a race is on. San Diego-based Organovo has been around since 2007 and has had some success in printing parts of lung, kidney and heart muscle. In 2015, it announced a partnership with the cosmetics behemoth L’Oréal on a plan to supply 3D-printed skin. Ultimately, the goal is to eradicate the need for animal trials.

L’Oréal is committing massive resources to bioprinting. In September last year, the company revealed that its scientists were also working with the France-based startup Poietis. The aim this time was to produce synthetic hair follicles. This, it turns out, is devilishly complex: there are more than 15 different cell types in each follicle and there is a cyclical process of fibre production that needs to be stimulated in vitro.

By 2020, the goal is to have the technology be broadly used by pharmaceutical companies, resulting in the identification of safer and better drug candidates and fewer failures in clinical trials. …This same 3D Printed technology via stem cells, is also being applied to meat production for human consumption.

Whilst scientists are racing to make replacement human organs with 3D printers. as the technology’s possibilities are exciting, already there are fears we could be ‘playing God’ and questioning as to where this may lead.

In America, they have conducted experiments using silkworms, spiders and human skin tissue and tested ballisticity of the skin (Blast capabilities) Funded through a Military research fund, and in the middle east tests using animal and genetically modified plant extracts are being tested on both cancers and skin graphs to ‘reproduce’ skin damaged through burns.