The Deadly Shortage Of Donor Organs Analysis

Bioprinting: life saving or life redefining? Bioprinting will drastically change life and medicine as we know it. According to the American Transplant Foundation the waiting list for an organ transplant has over 120,000 people, and a new name is added to that list every 10 minutes; on average 22 people die a day because they couldn't get a donor organ (“Facts: did you know?”). With bioprinting the number of people on the transplant list will change drastically, because organs can be produced on demand.

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.

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.

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.

The demand for organs exceeds the supply of organ donors, resulting in a shortage of organs. In other words, there are far more people in need of an organ transplant than there are people willing to donate. Consequently, patients are put on a transplant waiting list till an organ becomes available. Many patients die before an organ becomes available. However, in the few cases that organs do become available, organs are harvested from deceased patients rather than living donors. It is illegal to sell organs, and this may be the reason living donors are reluctant to donate and a shortage of organs. People are not willing to commit to a risky surgery, pain, and the recovery time without being compensated. Economists believe by creating a legal

One of the newer technologies being developed by biomedical engineers is a 3D bioprinting. A 3D printer is a computer run machine, which has the ability to print out objects layer by

As mentioned earlier, 3D printing can be more than just fun and games. 3D printing can be used to make organs and living tissues as well. This is obviously a complex process, but it can be done. This would allow more people to be able to receive transplants. This idea of printing organs and tissues has been discussed for quite a while now.

“A 3D printer is a computer run machine, which has the ability to print out objects layer by layer” (Griggs Para.1). The new advancement is a 3D organ printer that will print out human organs using embryonic stem cells. “To complete this process first scientist harvest stem cells, allowing them to double in a petri dish. The stem cell mixture can then be placed into a 3D printer, which is encoded to create an organ” (Griggs Para. 8). The technology for bioprinting isn’t yet complete but within the next few years bioprinting will be a real possibility. With the help of bioprinting, patients who have been waiting on organ transplant lists will no longer have to wait month or years for a compatible organ. Organ transplant wait times could be shortened days. With the use of this technology, “people who would once have to wait in anticipation on whether or not they would even receive an organ, will have the ability to get a brand new organ print from their own cells” (Hsu Para.2). Recently, a group of scientist tested a similar process by bioengineering a trachea for piglets made from the stem cells of different piglets (Castillo Para. 4). It was concluded, “three months after the bioengineered trachea was planted, the baby pig tripled in weight and doubled in size" (Castillo Para. 4). This proves the bioengineered trachea caused no harm to the piglet; it allowed them to grow and mature the

What exactly does the future of bioprinting have in store for this world? One could never be too sure. Despite the fact that artificial organs seem alien to a profuse amount of people, its current state in development justifies that bioprinted organs have the potentiality to do great things to those in

Printing organs has been talked about and attempted to be used for close to 40 years. Printing organs can help with advancements in many ways because it could help many of the people that are on the Organ Transplanting List, not to mention it could save countless lives as well. If organs are able to be printed and executed for procedures and transplants, then we could reduce hospital bills that increase during the time that you are waiting for an organ. Therefore, making a large advancement in the healthcare field. Organ printing can be very difficult and must be executed very carefully considering that the body may reject the new organ. Three-dimensional (3D) printing is a manufacturing method in which objects are made by fusing or depositing materials—such as plastic, metal, ceramics, powders, liquids, or even living cells—in layers to produce a 3D object (Ventola, October 2014). It is incredible to see how such materials can be used to be put together to make a living organism that can be used in a human’s body. As a person ages this could be very useful because organs tend to fail and become weak when a person gets older they could potentially be used to replace the failing organs.

Nearly eight thousand people are dying each year waiting, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing, which means that an average of twenty two people are dying each day in the United States alone because of the lack of donor organs (UNOS, 2016). Transplantation might be one of the greatest successes in the matter of therapy for those suffering from organ failure or disease. Organ transplants have made the health field able to treat diseases that once were fatal. Nowadays, there have been a considerable amount of people who have benefited from this advancement. For some, an organ transplant has meant an improvement of their life quality, while for others it has gone further from that to being considered a lifesaving operation. In many

There is no underestimating the importance of blood vessels to the human circulatory system. They supply organs with vital nutrients and remove hazardous waste. Up until now, creating a synthetic network of blood vessels has been scientifically out of reach. Using a 3-D bioprinting technique, a team of researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston has successfully managed to fabricate blood vessels. This achievement could be a significant boon to the lives of more than 105,000 Americans awaiting organ donations.

If you think about it, the need for organs are outracing the amount of organs and organs donors, that people are not getting the organ in time to save their life. Therefore, due to this problem organ printing would be a good investment to our society. Using 3D printing for organ printing will close the gap between the amount of people who need organs and organs available at least to close the gap between the amount of people who need organs and the amount of organs that are available. I also believe we should use the 3D print to print food. Using the 3D print to print food, could mean the end of world hunger. It would be efficient to print food rather than growing it once there are some advances in the technology. If you take the time to think more deeply about this once we figured out away for 3D print devices to print more food, the unemployment rate would

As a young third grader, I had difficulty in understanding the concept of a heart transplant. As my curiosity grew, the thought of how my grandfather was able to receive a younger, healthier heart remained in my mind despite my health teacher’s satisfactory answer in ninth grade. The ambiguity continued since his reply could not explain the steps involved to accomplish such a task. I was forced to rely on the Internet to find the answer, though most of the explanations were so convoluted that they left me with more questions than answers. However, I began to find similar designs and ideas, which introduced me to the ever-changing combination of engineering and medicine: biomedical engineering. The Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering will

Recently there have been various articles on interesting things that have been made through printing. And in particular, objects created through the use of 3D printing have come into the world of technology. The reason I believe that this technological trend is interesting because the objects that are being printed here are microscopic.When created, these materials would be used to make essential things like biological tissue. With all the medical issues that impact our world today, any new innovation that seem to create another medical alternative seems like a great idea. This is an example of technology that affects others because later on it can provide those without medical options another alternative.This could do so much for the