Bioprinter

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A bioprinter (bioprinter, rarely: organic printer) is a special form of a 3D printer , which is computer-controlled and using tissue engineering techniques to produce regular structures (so-called bioarrays) or tissue from previously grown individual cells . Later on, the technology will make it possible to manufacture entire organs . Bioprinters could be used in medicine (specific organs), in synthetic biology (artificial life forms) and in the food industry (artificial meat). According to the manufacturer, bioprinters are in a very advanced state of development. Companies that use Bioprinter (as of 2013) are Organovo and Modern Meadow . Both have the same founders. Organovo has medical plans for the bioprinters, initially artificial blood vessels are to be created for vascular surgery . Modern Meadow, on the other hand, would like to use them in the food industry. They say they want to produce synthetic meat as a substitute for industrial animal production. The process is generally referred to as " bioprinting ".

functionality

A bioprinter works similarly to a 3D printer based on the FDM process . An extruder builds molds from the material, in this case not a thermoplastic such as ABS , but a polymeric gel , e.g. B. based on alginate , with living cells enclosed therein. Organovos Bioprinter uses another promising technology to deposit droplets, each containing around 10,000 to 30,000 individual cells. These should later, stimulated by suitable growth factors , organize themselves into functional tissue structures.

Bioprinters have special components, such as temperature regulation, which are very important for correct printing.

As of today, the technology can print simply structured tissues such as muscle, cartilage, skin, parts of the liver and parts of the kidney. These are mainly made for drug testing.

Medical use

Bioprinters (in the experimental area) have been known for medical purposes since the year 2000. To date, it is not yet possible experimentally to print organs consisting of several types of tissue. Some of the research is more in the direction of building up relatively coarse cell aggregations through the printing process, which are then supposed to "mature" into organs through biological self-organization. A major problem is, for example, the creation of a functioning blood vessel system.

However, it seems quite conceivable that bioprinters or organs created with them could eventually replace donor organs. One advantage of bioprinter organs is that they are precisely tailored to the intended body. With donor organs, you have to wait until an organ is available that fits as well as possible. However, it is usually unlikely that a donor organ is available at all. The “printing time” of an artificial organ of several hours can be a barrier in the case of acute accidental injuries. Grafts that are printed with a normal 3D printer and are made of metal or plastic do not count towards bioprinting as no cells are used. Smaller bone parts or dentures made of calcium phosphate are already produced using the 3D printing process. It is common, however, to use material from specially bred cattle for bones.

Synthetic biology

In synthetic biology , bioprinters could be used to print novel forms of life . A sensational result in synthetic biology in public was a "medusoid", an artificial " jellyfish " made from muscle cells from rats and silicone that could swim. However, this was not only generated by a bioprinter.

food industry

Also food like meat to produce Bioprinter could be used en masse. The company Modern Meadow says it has already printed tasty meat, which was produced with less effort than cattle breeding and slaughter . The company wants to put an end to the slaughter. At the moment no “printed” meat is commercially available, although this would already be possible in terms of taste and health. Professor Stampfl from the Institute for Materials Science and Technology at the Vienna University of Technology estimated the cost of a printed piece of meat in 2013 to be at least 50,000 euros.

The satire of such a food industry was presented in the 1976 film “ Breast or Leg ”, in which Louis de Funès played the leading role and secretly intruded into a factory in which, for example, chicken were artificially produced.

Current bioprinter

The currently only commercial bioprinter is offered by Organovo, which also invests in research: NovoGen MMX. The price is only available on request. In addition, methods are being tested to develop bioprinters based on commercially available inkjet printers. Every “normal” 3D printer can theoretically become a bioprinter by replacing the plastic with cells. A BioFab 4000 (later also a BioFab 4500) is often shown in animations, but it does not really exist, only the function is to be illustrated. The same applies to a bioprinter on which the Hewlett-Packard logo can be seen. Presumably it was shown there because many printers are associated with market leader Hewlett-Packard. In fact, Hewlett-Packard does not offer any bioprinters and is not currently planning to do so (as of 2013).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b "Bioprinting technology promises to generate complex skin models". Retrieved March 6, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Vladimir Mironov, Richard P. Visconti, Vladimir Kasyanov, Gabor Forgacs, Christopher J. Drake, Roger R. Markwald (2009): Organ printing: Tissue spheroids as building blocks. Biomaterials Volume 30, Issue 12: 2164–2174 doi : 10.1016 / j.biomaterials.2008.12.084
  3. ^ Richard P Visconti, Vladimir Kasyanov, Carmine Gentile1, Jing Zhang, Roger R Markwald, Vladimir Mironov (2010): Towards organ printing: engineering an intra-organ branched vascular tree. Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy Vol. 10, No. 3: 409-420 doi : 10.1517 / 14712590903563352
  4. ↑ Werner Pluta: US researchers create artificial jellyfish. , July 23, 2012, golemd.de
  5. ↑ Janna C Nawroth, Hyungsuk Lee, Adam W Feinberg, Crystal M Ripplinger, Megan L McCain, Anna Grosberg, John O Dabiri, Kevin Kit Parker (2012): A tissue-engineered jellyfish with biomimetic propulsion. Nature Biotechnology 30: 792-797 doi : 10.1038 / nbt.2269
  6. ^ Bone factory , interview with Professor Stampfl of the TU Vienna on bioprinting, accessed on August 13, 2013.
  7. ↑ Chizuka Henmi, Makoto Nakamura, Yuichi Nishiyama, Kumiko Yamaguchi, Shuichi Mochizuki, Koki Takiura, Hidemoto Nakagawa (2008): New approaches for tissue engineering: three dimensional cell patterning using inkjet technology. Inflammation and Regeneration Vol.28 No.1: 36-40.