3D Printing in Medicine

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

Tissue engineering is an emerging interdisciplinary field that uses principles from engineering, biology and chemistry in an effort towards tissue regeneration. The main draw of tissue engineering is the regeneration of a patient’s own tissues and organs free from low biofunctionality and poor biocompatibility and serious immune rejection. As medical care continues to improve and life expectancy continues to grow, organ shortages become more problematic.(Manufacturing living things) According to organdonor.gov, a patient is added to the waiting list every 10 minutes and an average of 18 people die everyday waiting for an organ donation. The “nirvana” of tissue engineering is to replace the need for organ donation altogether. This could be achieved using scaffolding from

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

In the past, the only way to replace diminished cells, tissues, and organs was from organ transplantation. An organ donor was needed, and the tissues would be surgically removed from the donated body and placed into the recipient. Due to the current research being conducted, it is believed that tissue engineering and organ printing can contribute to the process of improving and saving lives.

Thump, thump… thump, thump… thump, thump. That is the sound of Nature’s most perfect machine, the human heart. It epitomizes the idea of natural engineering through its complexity and contribution to the vessel that holds it. But, can it be synthesized by the species that possesses and depends upon it? With the emerging 3D printing technology in the field of regenerative medicine, the answer may very well be yes. However, a question to consider before humanity embarks on this endeavour: do the life-saving advantages outweigh the various disadvantages?

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

In the future, the technology will be widely accepted since it can be used to create complete organ, to test newly developed drugs on manufactured cells instead of animals and human cell, to imprint cells directly onto a human body, thus reducing the wait time for organ transplantation, and save time and cost associated with drug research. An absolutely favorable position of customized organs is designing organs utilizing a patient 's own particular cells. With this methodology, there would be no issues with dismissal, and patients wouldn 't need to take the powerful anti-rejection medications that are presently required (Cooper-White, 2015). According to the Organovo company, the formation of a suitable liver is a crunch second for the bio-printing and drug industry since it demonstrates 3D printed tissue can be preserved successfully for a sufficient time to test the impacts of medications on it or insert it in a human body where it can further mature (Mearian,2013).

Although there may be questions speculating the negative side of this technological advancement, the world should realize the benefit. 3D printers can cure many unknown diseases and aid many disabled individuals. As said by Bernard in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, "We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium” (pg 111). The World State in the novel may consist of immortality and beauty, however, in modern times humans can’t be compared to this world. Our society can improve the people’s health, aiding them in medical advancements that are unimaginable. Therefore, many civilians have turned to medical facilities clinics to provide the necessary organs in order to survive. 3-D printing is greatly important for civilization because people are suffering from disabilities and custom made body parts could save many lives. With no further to do, even though this technology has some negative aspects, the positive attributes should be much more viewed with interest for it can save many lives in the next few years to

Bioprinting offers the ability to create a 3D biomimetic tissue by patterning cells and, in some approaches, multiple cell types with precise and reproducible spatial control. In order to create these organs a researcher must start off with a bioink consisting of compounds with a chemical structure consisting of polysaccharides and/or proteins. Some of the compounds include, but are not limited to agar, collagen, silk, elastin, and chitosan. These bioinks are then infused with additives that include growth factors, cytokines, and extracellular matrix (Bioprinting 4-12). Bioprinting then “moves from the laboratory to the clinic sources, clinical grade cells will be necessary to support the assembly of different constructs” This is where stem cells from the patient, if possible, are utilized to prevent the use of immunosuppressive drugs. (Bioprinting 4-12). Once everything is loaded into the biopen, it is then loaded into the bioprinter (fig 1, 2). Researchers are then able to make tissues, organs, and many other structural components.

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

There are over 11.4 million amputees worldwide in need of prosthetic limbs. Traditional methods of producing prosthetics limit availability due to cost and durability. While the technology is still very new and not well developed, 3D-printing is the future of prosthetic limbs. 3D-printed prosthetic limbs may be printed with different materials, and provide quick production with a lower cost, which can increase the availability of prosthetic limbs to more amputees.

With the very limited supply of organs, 3D printing creates functioning organs without a donation from a living organism. The definition of 3D printing from Charles W. Hull, the inventor of 3D systems, states that “...thin layers of a material that can be cured with ultraviolet light were sequentially printed in layers to form a solid 3D structure” (Murphy & Atala 773). The sheer narrow sheets play a vital role in bioprinting. They allow the printers to develop functional, layering individual cells, proteins, and an extracellular matrix. The three basic types of 3D printing include biomimicry, independent self- assembly, and miniature tissue blocks. The creation of the 3D structure creates all the difference between these types of printing. Three dimensional structure approaches include, creating exact duplicates of the cells and tissues with extensive knowledge, using a developing embryo as a template or using microscopic tissues to assemble into a larger developed tissue (Kalaskar). In other words, all these paths to bioprinting end up with a 3D structure but require different knowledge and materials. They all contain their own sets of challenges.