Printer produces human cells
Cells grown on plastic 'tissue scaffold'
Sarah Staples
CanWest News Service
January 20, 2005
British scientists have revealed an experimental modified inkjet printer they say is able to "print" human cells, and could eventually be used to produce made-to-measure skin and bones for accident victims at the touch of a button.
The researchers from the University of Manchester input instructions into a device about the size of three filing cabinets end-to-end, and it prints out human cells arranged in layers 10 microns thick; 1,000 layers equal one centimetre.
The cell layers spew out across a three-dimensional plastic structure called a "tissue scaffold," which serves as a support structure for the cells, and also determines their shape and size as they grow.
Competition is fierce among the handful of researchers in the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Japan who are working on printers that would be capable of spraying cells on to bio-engineered scaffolds to make bone, cartilage or skin used to treat burned or disfigured patients. And scaffolds without cells in them are even now being tested in human clinical trials at medical schools around the world.
But the Manchester team claims to be the first to build a printer that not only spews out cells, but also produces tailored slices of spongy scaffolding, made of hydrogel -- a polymer material similar to that used in contact lenses.
The British design grows larger scaffolds than previously possible, to far more exact and controlled
3-D shapes, spewing them directly from the printer. It stops cells from clumping, and keeps them alive despite the immense pressure of acceleration -- 100 times the force of gravity -- they undergo as they are sprayed on to the scaffold.
"We've sorted out how to print the cells without killing them," said Brian Derby, head of the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells Project research team. "And we're probably able to build the most 3-D structures."
The advance puts the field of tissue engineering "optimistically" within five years of producing the first tailor-made human tissue ready for clinical trials -- assuming a viable way can be found to meld the cells and scaffolding material more fully, and add many more layers, he said.
Cells harvested from the patient's body are dropped into an ink-like nutrient formula. The mixture is then sprayed between layers of biological scaffolding as they are laid down. The team is now working to refine a novel method to merge the cells with the bio-scaffolding.
Scientists will need to figure out how to "print" blood vessels before they could design complex tissues, such as organs. But initially, inkjet printers could be called upon to recreate cartilage, bone and skin, in ascending order of difficulty.
Cartilage would be comparatively easy to make because it has no blood vessels, while bone repairs itself and so could be expected to generate its own veins. Skin is riddled with veins, but is "thin and two-dimensional, so easier to work with," Derby said.
Cells grown on plastic 'tissue scaffold'
Sarah Staples
CanWest News Service
January 20, 2005
British scientists have revealed an experimental modified inkjet printer they say is able to "print" human cells, and could eventually be used to produce made-to-measure skin and bones for accident victims at the touch of a button.
The researchers from the University of Manchester input instructions into a device about the size of three filing cabinets end-to-end, and it prints out human cells arranged in layers 10 microns thick; 1,000 layers equal one centimetre.
The cell layers spew out across a three-dimensional plastic structure called a "tissue scaffold," which serves as a support structure for the cells, and also determines their shape and size as they grow.
Competition is fierce among the handful of researchers in the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Japan who are working on printers that would be capable of spraying cells on to bio-engineered scaffolds to make bone, cartilage or skin used to treat burned or disfigured patients. And scaffolds without cells in them are even now being tested in human clinical trials at medical schools around the world.
But the Manchester team claims to be the first to build a printer that not only spews out cells, but also produces tailored slices of spongy scaffolding, made of hydrogel -- a polymer material similar to that used in contact lenses.
The British design grows larger scaffolds than previously possible, to far more exact and controlled
3-D shapes, spewing them directly from the printer. It stops cells from clumping, and keeps them alive despite the immense pressure of acceleration -- 100 times the force of gravity -- they undergo as they are sprayed on to the scaffold.
"We've sorted out how to print the cells without killing them," said Brian Derby, head of the Ink-Jet Printing of Human Cells Project research team. "And we're probably able to build the most 3-D structures."
The advance puts the field of tissue engineering "optimistically" within five years of producing the first tailor-made human tissue ready for clinical trials -- assuming a viable way can be found to meld the cells and scaffolding material more fully, and add many more layers, he said.
Cells harvested from the patient's body are dropped into an ink-like nutrient formula. The mixture is then sprayed between layers of biological scaffolding as they are laid down. The team is now working to refine a novel method to merge the cells with the bio-scaffolding.
Scientists will need to figure out how to "print" blood vessels before they could design complex tissues, such as organs. But initially, inkjet printers could be called upon to recreate cartilage, bone and skin, in ascending order of difficulty.
Cartilage would be comparatively easy to make because it has no blood vessels, while bone repairs itself and so could be expected to generate its own veins. Skin is riddled with veins, but is "thin and two-dimensional, so easier to work with," Derby said.
