Coming Soon to Your Body: 3D Printed Organs

Every day, 20 people in the US die while waiting for an organ donation. Many of these people might have had a friend or family member try to donate, to find out that they are incompatible. 3D printed organs can solve that problem by printing these people new organs custom built for them. This will also solve another problem, which is that your body may attack an organ which it believes to be a foreign object.  Unfortunately, this technology is not available to everyone yet, so we are stuck with the old waiting line.

How it works

There are several different methods for 3d printing organs. Each of them has different problems and uses different materials. There are various other types of bioprinting that are not mentioned in this article too. Bioprinting works better than injection molding organs because injection molds can't make complex shapes inside of an organ

The first method is inkjet-based bioprinting. This method pushes print material out of a nozzle and onto a different surface. It is very similar to extrusion based bioprinting. This method is hard because of a few reasons. First, the material's surface tension tends to make the droplets bigger than the nozzle. This leads to the second problem, which is that the bigger droplets become deformed by external forces. Also, the nozzle might get clogged. On top of this, the cells might pop from the high pressure.

The second method is laser-based bioprinting, also known as LIFT. In this method, high power lasers are used to heat a bio-ink. A bubble forms and shoots the bio-ink forward and onto the receiving surface. Over time, it forms a completed organ. This can go very fast if the bio-ink can be replaced fast enough. One downside to this is that lasers can be harmful to cells. Also, the cells might go splat against the place that the organ is being built on.

Acoustic based bioprinting uses small sound waves to eject small droplets from a pool of print material onto another surface. It uses no nozzle, which makes the method clog-free. It also exposes the cells to none of the stress of inkjet-based or laser-based bioprinting. Thi method is very fast too. The fact that it has very few weaknesses makes it a good choice for most situations. Unfortunately, it can't use the more viscous print materials.

Materials Used

Each of the different methods of bioprinting uses a different kind of material. They are sometimes unable to use the other materials because they would result in a misprint. Either killing the cells, clogging the nozzle, or failing to do anything.

Bioprint material, also known as bio-ink consists of cells surrounded by a different material. The surrounding material is what allows the cells to be printed. It also serves as a material in which the cells live. The most common materials used for this are modified hydrogels, which are used in many areas other than bioprinting. 

Another thing that is important is the cell density. Too much, and the material will not print, but too little, and the organ will be a non-living blob. Laser-based printers can use many different cell densities and viscosity, but most others have much smaller ranges.

Concerns

A major concern with this is that people will engage in more dangerous behavior like drinking if they can just get a new liver. As stated in the book Soonish, "...if you put people in a situation where they can behave badly, you will probably get bad behavior." This is important because many of us can't see ourselves getting a liver transplant. Also, we may think "Eh, why not? I can just get another liver if mine fails, right?" However, if we think this way, we probably will need to get a new liver.  Bioprinting would probably still save lives, but it might also cause deaths that wouldn't have happened before.

Conclusion

Overall, the emerging technology of bioprinting has the capacity to save thousands of lives. There are many different ways to print organs, each with its own weaknesses and strengths. They can each print different bio-inks with their own different cell densities and viscosities. Most importantly, this new technology must be used with caution. When these organs become available, we must pay attention to our bodies so that we don't need surgery. Lastly, I have a question from the book Soonish. Can we print and eat people meat? Tell us what you think by commenting below.