Organ Donation and Transplantation:
Organ donation and transplantation is the removal of an organ from a donor and the surgical process of placing it in the recipient whose organ has failed. This is one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine and has saved millions. However, the number of recipients requiring organ donations is vastly disproportionate to the number of donors available. There are currently over 100,000 people waiting for a donor on the national transplant waiting list, with 17 dying every day, unable to get a transplant. The high demand for organ donations has led teams of dedicated scientists to work hard on further developing an alternative solution to this issue: bioprinting human organs.
Bioprinting
Bioprinting is a form of 3D printing developed by scientists in order to create artificial human tissue and organs that can imitate the behavior and structures of their natural counterparts. This technique uses bioink, a printable material that is a mixture of living cells, chemicals, and hydrogels, all of which encourage the pre-existing cells in humans to further communicate and grow when placed in the body.
Bioprinting is a very technical and complex process, but simply put, it is a series of three steps:
Pre-Printing: Analysis of the problem and selection of the best-suited cells and bioink materials that will be used.
Bioprinting: The process of creating the tissue structure.
Post-Printing: Ensuring that the product created is functional and safe to implant into the patient’s body.
The Future
Tissue repair has been tested and is very successful, showing a lot of potential for the future. Bioprinting has made it possible to make use of small tissue patches to regenerate and treat major organs like the liver or heart. It has also opened up possibilities for bone and skin grafting, surgeries that replace missing or damaged tissues or bone with a healthy substitute. However, despite the tremendous strides that have been made in the bioprinting industry, experts estimate that it will be more than a decade before fully functioning bioprinted organs can be used. With widespread use of bioprinted organs as the final objective, our passionate scientists will continue to fabricate miraculous solutions for those in need.
References
“Organ Donation Statistics | organ donor.gov.” OrganDonor.gov, 20 March 2023, https://www.organdonor.gov/learn/organ-donation-statistics. Accessed 12 June 2023.
Carolo, Lucas. “What Is 3D Bioprinting? – Simply Explained.” All3DP, 12 May 2022, all3dp.com/2/what-is-3d-bioprinting-simply-explained/.
Panja, Nabanita, et al. “3D Bioprinting of Human Hollow Organs.” AAPS PharmSciTech, 10 May 2022, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9088731/.
Papaioannou, Theodore G, et al. “3D Bioprinting Methods and Techniques:
Applications on Artificial Blood Vessel Fabrication.” Acta Cardiologica Sinica, May 2019, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6533576/.
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