X-Message-Number: 20946
From: "Basie" <>
Subject: Brains could be printed
Date: Wed, 22 Jan 2003 18:58:17 -0500

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Reuters 
 
Living Tissue to Be Hot Off the Printer
Wed Jan 22, 2:46 PM ET  Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! 
 



LONDON (Reuters) - Scientists are turning to desktop printers in an effort to 
produce three dimensional tubes of living tissue and possibly even entire 
organs. 


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Instead of using a degradable scaffold and covering it with cells to produce 
tissue, scientists in the United States are modifying ink jet printers and using
cells to create 3D structures. 



"The work is a first step toward printing complex tissues or even entire 
organs," New Scientist magazine said on Wednesday. 



Although producing organs is a very long way away, many laboratories are 
printing arrays of DNA, proteins and even cells. 



Vladimir Mironov, of the Medical University of South Carolina, and Thomas 
Boland, of Clemson University in the same state, have used a non-toxic, 
biodegradable gel and animal cells to make the structures. 



"By printing alternate layers of the gel and clumps of cells on to glass slides,
they have shown 3D structures such as tubes can be built," according to the 
magazine. 



If the layers are thin enough the cells fuse when they come in contact with each
other and bits of tissue are formed. When the structure is finished the gel can
be removed. 



"Like printing with different colors, placing different types of cells in the 
ink cartridges should make it possible to recreate complex structures consisting
of multiple cells," the magazine explained. 



But before scientists can produce organs they will have to solve the problem of 
creating circulatory networks to provide oxygen and nutrients to the cells in 
the structures. 


But the scientists hope it will be possible. 



"This could have the same kind of impact that Gutenberg's press did," said 
Mironov. 




 
 
 


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