United Therapeutics, a company that sells drugs to treat lung ailments, plans to use a 3-D printer to manufacture human lungs in “unlimited quantities.”
Some background: Bioprinting isn’t a new idea: 3-D printers can make human skin, even retinas. Yet the method has been limited to tissues that are very small or very thin and lack blood vessels.
What’s different this time? United is developing a printer that it believes, within a few years, will be able to manufacture a detailed outline of a lung made of collagen. But that’s a long way from a working organ, so United also is developing ways to impregnate the matrix with human cells so they’ll attach and bring it to life.
The timeline: As our own Antonio Regalado writes, don’t expect fully manufactured lungs soon—United predicts it won’t happen for another 12 years. But the company’s effort, which may be industry’s largest, has the potential to save lives if successful.
SOURCE
Some background: Bioprinting isn’t a new idea: 3-D printers can make human skin, even retinas. Yet the method has been limited to tissues that are very small or very thin and lack blood vessels.
What’s different this time? United is developing a printer that it believes, within a few years, will be able to manufacture a detailed outline of a lung made of collagen. But that’s a long way from a working organ, so United also is developing ways to impregnate the matrix with human cells so they’ll attach and bring it to life.
The timeline: As our own Antonio Regalado writes, don’t expect fully manufactured lungs soon—United predicts it won’t happen for another 12 years. But the company’s effort, which may be industry’s largest, has the potential to save lives if successful.
SOURCE
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