Essay On Organ Printing

1166 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Printing organs for the human body

Human organ printing is beginning to be described as the next major innovation and breakthrough in 3D printing technology. The development of human organs is referred to as Bio printing. Here’s how it works: Scientists gather human cells from biopsies or stem cells, and then allow them to multiply in a petri dish over a period time. The result yields a mixture, very similar to the ink that is used for a regular printer. The substance is then loaded into the 3D printers. The printer is programmed to arrange various cell types, as well as other materials, into a precise 3D shape. Doctors hope that, when inserted into the body, the 3D printed cells will integrate with the existing tissues.
Scientists from various teams have already shown that lab-built organs can successfully function in patients. For example, engineered airways, bladders, blood vessels and urine tubes have been successfully implanted. Commonly, these structures are a combination of cells and biomaterials made in the shape of an organ or tissue. For many years, medical researches have been working in an effort to develop blood vessels, urine tubes, skin tissue, and over living organs. However, developing whole, fully functioning organisms, including all cell structures, is very difficult. This is where 3D printers make their groundbreaking impact. Due to their great precision and process, they are able to reproduce vascular systems required to make organs functional. Scientists are already using these machines to print small individual strips of organ tissue. Developing whole human organs for surgical transplants has not completely been proven to be effective yet. With technology rapidly developing, the future looks promising.
One glimpse of promise occurred two y...

... middle of paper ...

... development of working organs. The miniature kidneys that they developed only lasted about 4 months. Clearly this would not be practical for a patient to have a transplant with an organ that would only last a few months. In the future, scientists will look to see how exactly they can increase the lifespan of 3D printed organs. In the long run, the benefit of 3D organ printing is that patients are able to successfully endure a transplant procedure that could potentially be life saving. As of now, there are no apparent long- term risks of 3D printed organs since the development is so new. However, the topic has caused much controversy in terms of moral, legal, and social issues. As research improves and development increases, 3D printing will continuously become more and more of a reality and increase in its relevance both in the medical world, and to our society as

Show More
Related

  • Annuloplasty Ring

    2199 Words  | 5 Pages

    Lantada, Andres Diaz, Pilar Lafont Morgado, Julio Munoz-Garcia, Juan Manuel Munoz-Guijosa, Javier Echavarri Otero, Jose Luis Munoz Sanz, and Raquel Del Valle-Fernandez. “Development of Personalized Annuloplasty Rings: Combination of CT Images and CAD-CAM Tools.” Annals of Biomedical Engineering 38, 2009. 28 March 2011: 280-290.

    Read More

  • Regenerative Medicine In Brendan Maher's How To Build A Heart

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    Brendan Maher, in his article “How to Build a Heart” discusses doctor’s and engineer’s research and experimentation into the field of regenerative medicine. Maher talks about several different researchers in this fields. One is Doris Taylor, the director of regenerative medicine at the Texas Heart Institute in Houston. Her job includes harvesting organs such as hearts and lungs and re-engineering them starting with the cells. She attempts to bring the back to life in order to be used for people who are on transplant waiting lists. She hopes to be able to make the number of people waiting for transplants diminish with her research but it is a very difficult process. Maher says that researchers have had some successes when it comes to rebuilding organs but only with simples ones such as a bladder. A heart is much more complicated and requires many more cells to do all the functions it needs to. New organs have to be able to do several things in order for them to be used in humans that are still alive. They need to be sterile, able to grow, able to repair themselves, and work. Taylor has led some of the first successful experiments to build rat hearts and is hopeful of a good outcome with tissue rebuilding and engineering. Scientists have been able to make beating heart cells in a petri dish but the main issue now is developing a scaffold for these cells so that they can form in three dimension. Harold Ott, a surgeon from Massachusetts General Hospital and studied under Taylor, has a method that he developed while training. Detergent is pumped into a glass chamber where a heart is suspended and this detergent strips away everything except a layer of collagen, laminins, and other proteins. The hard part according to Ott is making s...

    Read More

  • Embryonic Stem Cells Research, A List of Topics and Sub-Topics

    2164 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Through the isolation and manipulation of cells, scientists are finding ways to identify young, regenerating ones that can be used to replace damaged of dead cells in diseased organs. This therapy is similar to the process of organ transplant, only the treatment consists of the transplantation of cells rather than organs. The cells that have shown by far the most promise of supplying diseased organs with healthy cells are called stem cells.” (Chapter Preface)

    Read More

  • The Government Should Fund Embryonic Stem Cell Research

    2402 Words  | 5 Pages

    Stem cell research began in 1956 when Dr. E Donnall Thomas performed the first bone marrow transplant (“Adult stem cells are not more promising,” 2007). Since that time, research has evolved into obtaining cells from a variety of tissues. According to stem cell research professors, Ariff Bongso and Eng Hin Lee (2005), “Stem cells are unspecialized cells in the human body that are capable of becoming cells, each with new specialized functions” (p. 2). Stem cells are in various adult tissues, such as bone marrow, the liver, the epidermis layer of skin, the central nervous system, and eyes. They are also in other sources, such as fetuses, umbilical cords, placentas, embryos, and induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), which are cells from adult tissues that have been reprogrammed to pluripotency. Most stem cells offer multipotent cells, which are sparse...

    Read More

  • Stem Cells Essay

    983 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...velopment of tissues to replace damaged organs in the human body. Scientists have discovered for the first time how stem cells could be generated from embryo’s that were produced using adult stem cells.

    Read More

  • Cloning - It’s Time for Organ Farms

    1444 Words  | 3 Pages

    Currently 70,000 Americans are on the organ waiting list and fewer than 20,000 of these people can hope to have their lives saved by human organ transplantation.1  As a result of this shortage, there has been a tremendous demand for research in alternative methods of organ transplantation.  Private companies are racing to develop these technologies with an estimated market of six billion dollars.2  Xenotransplantation, or cross-species organ transplantation, appears to be the most likely solution in the near future, and cloned pigs are the main candidates.  Pigs and humans have remarkable similarities in physiology, which along with cloning makes pigs strong possibilities for organ donors.  A controversial alternative method involves the use of genetically altered headless human beings as organ donors.  Although this method may not be developed for some years, scientists are already discussing the necessary technologies.  Whether the solution is the cloning of a pig or a human, organ farms may provide us with a solution to our ever-increasing need for donors.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of Human Regeneration

    1321 Words  | 3 Pages

    This will even be further refined and we will simply print out replacement parts as needed using a modified 3-d printer similar to what we have today. Whether printed or grown this advancement will have the potential to extended human life well beyond what we currently think the limits are. The pros for this advancement would be simply that what we consider life altering diseases or accidents would simply be a temporary condition until replacement parts are either printed or grown and then used to replace the defective areas. This has a clear potential to end several common modern conditions and allow people a normal life beyond what we can manage today. Cons to this advancement are numerous but the most apparent is when we combine genetic manipulation and this technology we can produce genetically superior body parts. Thus, the human condition we have at birth will be thrown out and replaced with something beyond our imagination. This also has a con in that as with genetic manipulation towards a superior human if someone had an ulterior motive they could in fact insert a type of gene marker that if activated could potentially kill the recipient or be used to control a person through either overt blackmail or covert control. AS is the case with all advancements we have looked at thus far we would need to manage this one and ensure the safety of anything being used to replace a body part is not modified to the detriment of the person receiving the replacement

    Read More

  • Alcoholics Should NOT Be Eligible to Receive Organ Transplants

    1098 Words  | 3 Pages

    When someone is in need of a transplant, there are several factors that are looked at in deciding whether or not the patient will be placed on the transplant list. Patients receive points for medical need, tissue type and time on the waiting list. Doctors then use a computer algorithm to decide who gets the organs available. Typically, one’s overall health, age, ability to comply with the regimen of anti-rejection drugs and a strong support system also comes into the decision process as well. Geographical location of the donor organ is also very important in the decision making process. (Whitford, 2005) Due to the shortage of organs, not all on the list get the organs they need. If people would get past their fears with regards to stem cell research, we could grow perfectly viable h...

    Read More

  • Xenotransplantation

    3337 Words  | 7 Pages

    Organs from pigs, goats, monkeys, chimpanzees, and baboons have been used in xenotransplant experiments conducted so far. It promises to be a good treatment option for patients with end-stage organ failure (Williams 12). The transplant surgery could be scheduled at the patient’s convenience rather than scheduling an emergency surgery as soon as the human donor is found. Patients would be able to receive transplants when they first need them rather than having to wait until a transplant is the only remaining option that can save their lives. When transplants are conducted earlier, the patient will be stronger and have a better chance of recovering. Xenotransplantation appears to have several advantages as a medical procedure, but like any medical procedure it is not without its risks. Before we embrace xenotransplantation as yet another boon of science, we need to consider the ethical dilemmas surrounding this medical technology.

    Read More

  • The Pros And Cons Of 3-D Organ Printing

    459 Words  | 1 Pages

    I would hope that if you are able to receive a 3-d organ due to reckless behavior or some sort, than after the recipient would cherish their new health and not take advantage of a new organ being available again. An alcoholic for example; just because you know a new lung will be available for printing does that mean you should just become an alcoholic an heavy drinker and continue those ways even after the bio-printed organ is implanted? And then be able to just get another one over and over and never quit drinking? No that just doesn't seem fair even though it would just be available and more convenient than waiting on the transplant list for years, and still not ever receiving an

    Read More

  • Bone Regeneration: Bone Grafts

    745 Words  | 2 Pages

    The human body endures a great deal of wear and injury during its lifetime. It is for this reason that the body has several tissues that are capable of regeneration. Bone is one of those tissues that receives extensive use so it is necessary that it is strong in order to carry out its functions; however, it will occasionally face injury. Although our bones are capable of regeneration, a new method would help the elderly and others that have a more difficult time healing after injury. I viewed a “TED Talk” lecture, which discussed a new way of regenerating bone with the help of our own bodies. Molly Stevens, the head of a biomaterials lab, presented “A New Way to Grow Bone” where she discussed a new technique called “in vivo bioreactor”. She also answered why this new procedure is beneficial. Researchers like Stevens are constantly trying to find innovative new techniques and they do this by asking questions. The question that Stevens presented in the video was an intriguing one: “Can we recreate the regeneration of bone on demand and transplant it?”.

    Read More

  • Animal Research and Testing, Is it Ethical?

    2169 Words  | 5 Pages

    “Transplanting animal organs into humans is feasible.” USA Today. November 1999: 54-55. Gehlsen, Gale M., Ganion, Larry R. and Robert Helfst.

    Read More

  • 3D Organ Printing

    1882 Words  | 4 Pages

    The field of bioprinting, using 3D printing technology for producing live cells with extreme accuracy, could be the answer to many of the problems we as humans face in the medical field. It could be the end to organ waiting lists and an alternative for organ transplants. In 3D printing technology lies the potential to replace the testing of new drugs on animals. However, the idea of applying 3 dimensional printing to the health industry is still quite new and yet to have a major impact. Manufacturing working 3D organs remains an enormous challenge, but in theory could solve major issues present today.

    Read More

  • The Benefits of Human Cloning

    1013 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the most beneficial aspects to cloning is the ability to duplicate organs. Many patients in hospitals are waiting for transplants and many of them are dying because they are not receiving a needed organ. To solve this problem, scientists have been using embryonic stem cells to produce organs or tissues to repair or replace damaged ones (Human Cloning). Skin for burn victims, brain cells for the brain damaged, hearts, lungs, livers, and kidneys can all be produced. By combining the technology of stem cell research and human cloning, it will be possible to produce the needed tissues and organs for patients in desperate need for a transplant (Human Cloning). The waiting list for transplants will become a lot shorter and a lot less people will have to suff...

    Read More

  • Human Regneration: The Process Of Regeneration In Humans

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    A number of organs have the intrinsic ability to regenerate, a distinctive feature that varies among organisms. Organ regeneration is a process not fully yet understood however when its underlyning mechanism are unreveled, it holds tremendous therapeutic potential for humans. [28]

    Read More

More about Essay On Organ Printing

Open Document