3D Printing In Brave New World

As 3D printing transitions from commercial manufacturing use to personal private use individuals will have the ability to print any design. Products can range from a pair of shoes to complicated engineering designs, life-saving devices, prosthetic limbs and weapons that pass airport security. In the future we will likely see printable medications and

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.

In a study conducted through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on “average 79 people will receive an organ each day; however, an average of 22 people die each day” waiting for transplants that cannot take place because of the shortage of donated organs (U.S. D.H.H.S). The average amount of patients waiting for an organ can reduce to zero with the continued development of 3-D printers. 3-D printing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. The digital file is uploaded onto a computer software, and then the 3-D printer prints the digital file out onto different materials. The materials include plastic, resin, nylon, sandstone. The finish products become replicas of the digital file, and what was an idea is now a reality. Therefore, 3-D printers will one day be the future of organ transplants because over the past twenty years the technology industry has rapidly grown into the focal point in society. From advancement in communication, to the medical field, science and technology has shaped this world today. Thus, the American Government should invest more money into the medical field budget because the research conducted on new technology (3-D Printers) leads to more lives saved, and expands the opportunity of future medical breakthroughs.

Secondly, advanced 3D printing applied to the medical field can be utilized in an Engels non capitalist technology drive society to impact the area of safety. In this utopian society, advanced 3D printing will have the capabilities to print synthetic tissue and organic tissue that can bond to the patient’s cells. In effect, this helps the patient’s wound heal faster. This type of advanced 3D bio printing can save many lives

Doctors and engineers have been working on another way to get organs a faster and more efficient way. Using 3D printers can help with their problem. They have worked on using a 3D printer to make organs that are a perfect match for patients. This can be very useful it can get an organ ready in a short amount of time helping the patient recovery faster as well. Organ transplants are hard to come by. One you have to be put in a waiting list, and people are usually on that list for a long while, just waiting for a perfect match to come. But sometimes it takes to long and some people die while still on the waiting list. But when an organ finally does come they feel bad because someone had to die in order for them to use it. So Dr Ali Khademhosseini is trying to use 3D printing to help solve this problem. His theory is he can make organs from a 3D printer, which can make the waiting list decrease faster and have people not have to die in order for a perfect match. 3D printers have been used to make Human cells, tissue, and blood vessels. But making something like a heart is much more difficult. Because you have to make the beating and pumps. (Mesley). There have been problems in the past that have just know started to show in some people. "Viruses aren't the only worry, and here too the past may serve as a guide. In 1956 injections of human growth hormone became a standard therapy for children failing to develop properly. The hormone was extracted from

My exploration of this topic led me to an article on HuffingtonPost.com. The article is “How 3D Printing Could End The Deadly Shortage of Donor Organs” by Macrina Cooper-White. In said article,

3D printing is definitely a huge advancement in Technology! However, very controversial. Although, it has multiple benefits in our society in Medical health practices & Engineering speed, it can also be used for illegal purposes. Now, does the bad outweigh the good? That is the question debated today. I see the whole concept in only 2 large points. It will greatly help people who are desperately in need for transplant organs. It will drastically reduce the organ waiting list and once perfected, our life span should be bumped up a decade or so. On the other hand, what if someone down the road you'll be able to completely recreate a human being in it's entirety? Would we harvest them for their organs? Would it be fair? What if it falls in the

Aside from these state level approaches, 3D printing offers a promise for increasing available organs. This promise was validated in 2016, when a toddler from Northern Ireland became the “first to have a life-saving adult kidney transplant, using 3D printing.” While much work still needs to be done, printed organs, in addition to other proposed solutions, are alternatives to creating human-pig chimeras for organ transplantation.

Unfortunately, this is the sad reality. Having the technology to utilize a 3-D printer to reconstruct a patient’s organ would prevent patients from having to wait for a donor organ. Being able to use the patient’s own cells to build his or her new organ would decrease the chances that the patient’s body will reject it. According to Thilmany (2012) indicated “the end goal here is the growing of a biocompatible piece of tissue to repair or replace a patient's own damaged body part, such as bone, cartilage, blood vessels, or skin” (p.

On April 9th of 2013, a dying toddler was finally saved after two years of living under strict medical care. The toddler, Hannah Warren, was born without a windpipe that was needed for proper respiratory purposes. The treatment consisted of a 3D printed replacement windpipe made of her own stem cells, which was, as TIME’s writer Alexandra Sifferlin stated, “approved by the FDA as an experimental operation for patients with very little hope of survival.” Although the treatment was experimental, this was an astounding advancement in medical technology because “being born without a trachea is fatal in 99% of cases.” (Sifferlin) 3D printing technology has been advancing at a rapid rate and has demonstrated a vast number of beneficial applications including Warren’s experimental treatment. Richard Seymour, a writer in the African Business Magazine explains how “Applications for the new technology are myriad. Medicine, agriculture, military, automotive, technology, engineering, fashion, architecture and aerospace are just some of the industries which can benefit from the new process.” (44) In his article, Seymour lists various instances of 3D printing being used such making prototyping Nike running shoes cheaper, jet engines more efficient, organ replacement more likely to occur, cheaper medicine, and improved space travel. Because of all the beneficial tasks it can perform, it would appear that 3D printing could have a central role in the future of technology, yet such a

In the article “The next frontier in 3-D printing: Human organs” written by Brandon Griggs, published by CNN on April 5, 2014, Griggs explains how the new technology in 3-D printing is progressing from printing “toys to jewelry to food” and now, still developing, human organs. Although it seems positive to patients who are waiting and in need of organs, there are still some heated discussions as to the responsibility of producing and guaranteeing quality the artificial organs. Another

  Wouldn't it be nice to save the quality of life for all of humanity? Although we have yet to invent a fully functional organ printer, we should be able to make one and mass produce organs. According to many doctors and hospitals

Why go to stores and spend lots of money buying toys, jewelry, cups and many other plastic utilities when you can only press one button and print them out for yourself. This futuristic idea is not only innovating the scientific and technological world, but it is also innovating modern day households. The possibilities of 3D printing are extremely captivating, making this one of the most exciting innovations in recent times. 3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, makes three-dimensional solid objects from a digital model or command. To picture how this process works, 3D printers use an additive process, where adding layers of a successive material creates an object. Traditional machines, however, uses a subtractive process by

All the techniques contain advantages and disadvantages, but a problem that needs solving before used clinically, is advancing the printer technology. A 3D-printed organ must contain the ability to perform all the functions of a real organ as

We live in a time where technology is improved and advanced every single day. The health care environment is no exception. The technology used for health care is constantly being refined and advanced in hopes to allow even better and more efficient care. One of these technological advancements that could revolutionize health care is 3D printing. Benefits 3D printing could provide include construction of prosthetic limbs as well as anatomical models aimed at determining patients’ needs and many more (Ventola, 2014). However, there are also disadvantages of this technology and one of the main disadvantages is the security issues it presents. There are both advantages and disadvantages of 3D printing but there is no denying the promise of this technology and the potential impact it could have.