Patients find new hope in 3D Printing This article really intrigued me. Did you know that researchers have invented a 3D printer that not only prints solid 3D objects that can be used to replace bone, but also print cartilage for their patients? This has been saving many lives, with of course a unique twist. Since this new technology is fairly new in the medical field of regenerative medicine, researchers and doctors want to make anyone with missing organs, or anyone that needs an organ replaced to make their life easier with this printing technology. The goal of this printing system is to make humans stronger by developing tissues for the body, while making sure the body can function the right way. This new technique can possibly help people …show more content…
If a military or war veteran lost a limb from fighting for our country, this will help them in miraculous ways. This printing system can create cartilage and make bones of any size. One woman even received a plastic skull which created many living tissues. Patients who have lost ears, or fingers will have them easily replaced. For anyone who has been severely injured or if they need organs replaced, this is the perfect way to cure these issues. The idea of placing individual human cells with a precise pattern to replace a damaged jaw, missing ear or a scarred heart muscle holds much promise (Gallagher). Before doing the surgery, doctors will need to make sure the cells will survive, then afterwards see how they function, which will be the final …show more content…
This technology may help many lives in the future, especially if they are missing limbs, and the possibility to have a chance at new organs and limbs functioning and working properly is well worth this intriguing research. This regenerative medicine will hopefully replace other prosthetic limbs in the future since these limbs are more realistic and can use the right amount of tissues for correct function. In the future this medical procedure has limitless possibilities. If more scientists proceed with this type of research, doctors can improve this printing system each year until it is fully dependable with low amounts of risk to the
Organ donation provided a new therapeutic path when new drugs and devices failed to reduce the mortality and morbidity rate of patients with such illnesses as cardiovascular diseases. By replacing damaged organs or tissue with a functioning substitute, organ transplantation offers an immediate cure. Unfortunately, this “cure” is never guaranteed because of the high risk of graft rejection and that’s if a suitable donor can be found. Thus, tissue engineering has been the projected new treatment for these problems. Tissue engineering replaces the diseased or damaged tissue or organs with biofabricated counterparts made using the specifications dictated by the features of the specific tissue or organ.
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.
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.
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,
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).
SINcE I hAVE ALwAYS BEEN INTErESTEd in science and technology, I subscribed to many research magazines, including Popular Science and Scientific American. However, until 10th grade, I never had the opportunity to contribute to medical research—something that I had always wanted to do. Then, one day I read an article titled “Print Me a Pancreas, Please” in Popular Science, which described novel tissue engineering research involving modification of off-the-shelf inkjet printers to print out living cells in a “bioink” solution. Having read much about tissue engineering, I realized this “organ printing” approach could potentially address problems of traditional tissue engineering methods, such as the need to precisely place specific cell types in 3D scaffolds. I was so excited that I came up with a few ideas of my own about advancing the
As today’s technology is changing, some of the most major effects of it are superior advances in the medical field. One advance in the medical field is tissue engineering. It is being developed for use in regenerative medicine and soon to be in wider use for other treatments. Tissue engineering’s goal for the future is for the medicine to be able to stimulate other cells around the damage area of the body to get them to grow and produce living tissue (Sciencedaily). Another medical advancement is the monitoring systems and how hospitals can better track for problems and signs of an emergency. This can also help the surgeons decide how to stitch up a patient for best recovery time (Sciencedaily). As technology keeps progressing, another medical advancement is the way surgeons are doing operations. Today, for complex surgeries, surgeons now will get help from the use of a robot for accurate procedures; this will help with the size of the incision and keep the recovery time shorter than during standard surgery.
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.
What would you do if you needed surgery and the doctor told you there was new technology that allow surgeons to spend less time while operating and is much safer? The parents of ten-year-old Kevin Yintia from Kansas City was faced with this type of question earlier this year. Kevin contracted an infection living in Central African Republic while he was just a baby. This infection caused severe damage to Kevin’s hip, which made him smaller than the average boy. Since Kevin was only ten years old, other methods of treatment like braces would be very costly as he would out grow them every few months (Carter). The Chief of Orthopedic Research, Dr. Richard Schwend, at Children’s Mercy Hospital was able to fix Kevin’s
The idea of eliminating that and giving people the ability to create their device with the 3D printing bridges the gap and gives them direct access to the device as needed. Although, we cannot neglect the role and the impact that medical experts have played over the years from working with different amputees and creating prosthetics that not only best fit, but also strives to remove the stigma that comes with being an amputee. Medical experts play an important role in the fitting of prosthetic because they are trained and experienced. This isn’t a one fit all situation, a certain technique is required by experts to ensure patients get the best fit that suits them. Nevertheless, the shift from the medical experts to empowering patient to print their own 3D body part isn’t a loose situation since medical experts have been unable to effectively meet the demand of everyone’s need, but they still need to work together. Moreover, who is the best judge as to what a good fit is other than the
Updated Group Thesis Statement: 3D printing has revolutionized healthcare by increasing availability, customization, production and lowering the costs of pharmaceuticals, organs, and prosthetics.
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
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