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Printed from https://www.damninteresting.com/retired/printing-skin/
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Inkjet printers are extremely common. Odds are there’s one at your elbow while reading this. It’s a time tried, and effective method of putting words on a page. Now the same mechanism is being used to print skin—not on skin—to print actual skin.
Such a printer works by drawing in a sheet of paper, positions it under the print heads. The print heads draw in ink from a reservoir, and spray the ink onto the page as they pass over it horizontally. Once a pass is complete the paper is pulled up to a new row, and the print heads pass over again and deliver their ink.
The skin printer uses much of the same technique.
When a person requires a graft or transplant, some of his cells are harvested, and multiplied, then plopped into a nutrient-rich liquid that would become the printer’s ink. The paper would be replaced with a plastic tissue scaffold sized to fit the patient’s need, and then the printer would squirt the cells onto the scaffold. Several layers would be needed, but it (relatively) quickly forms a skin. The entire scaffold is grafted to the patient with the expectation that the plastic would dissolve over time.
Since the skin cells are from the patient’s own body, it would be easier to reincorporate them into the body.
And this it just the first part of the plan. They’re hoping to have a working skin printer by 2010, but there are thoughts that the same technology could be used to build bones or other organs.
Such plans are merely preliminary, but there are high hopes that this technology will work out to help in speeding along the recoveries of people we know … what a wonderfully modern world we live in.
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simply fascinating
This is just awesome. Think of the burn victims that will benefit from this!
Still not as cool as the weather-forecasting Web toaster.
I’m not sure if anyone is thinking this, but reading this reminds me of the movie “The Fifth Element”. They use something like this to reconstruct the body, only much more…you know..science-fictiony. Either way, this will be cool to see if it comes to fruition.
this is very cool. but i cant help but think of that one movie where the guy uses peoples skin to make dolls and lampshades. kinda creepy
xircso: that’s exactly what I was thinking. Damn, only five comments and somebody already beat me to it. Unfortunately, I don’t think most recipients of this treatment will turn out looking as good as Milla Jovovich.
This is way cool. Thinking about the two recent sucessful face transplants,a persons face could literaly be re-grown with a mask on a frame. The mask could be created from a 3D digital analysis of a photograph. WOW! DI!
Good idea, Great work, Brilliant Uses, But Discutsing!
next a MONEY printer!
“And this it just the first part of the plan.”
Perhaps “And this _is_ just the first part of the plan.”
Otherwise – DI! I used to work at a place that repaired knee and other joint cartilage by taking some cells from a patient, growing them into the appropriate size and shape in the lab, then implanting back into the joint. That was interesting too, but much more time-consuming than this process!
Maybe they won’t have to grow ears on the back of mice anymore…