After reading through numerous articles and actively following the progress in bioprinting I can actually imagine, how in the future (maybe a few decades from now) we will all have our full body MRI scans done and stored in case there is a need to replace a failing organ or substitute a limb. Before an operation the doctor would examine our file and his team would print out a functioning organ, perfectly fit for our individual body on the cell level as well as shape wise. In my next blog I will talk about the current stage of bioprinting development and try to estimate when we can actually expect the first fully functioning body organ to be produced. In this blog, I would like to talk about some of the crazy ideas that might well become the reality sooner than we expect.
Crazy Idea #1- Cells printed directly onto the human body.
Imagine how great it would be if doctors could scan patients’ wounds, take tissue samples and then spray on layers of cells to heal the wound rapidly. According to Explaining the Future (explainingthefuture.com), Dr. Anthony Atala (whom I mentioned in my first “Blog Expert” Post) and his team of bioprinting researchers have already developed a skin printer. Their initial experiments on mice were successful with the wounds healing in just 2-3 weeks after being sprayed on, compared to 5-6 weeks in control group.
Crazy Idea #2 – Bioprinters repairing organs inside the human’s body
If one day we will be able to insert functioning 3D printed organs in our bodies, why not think further and imagine having a robotic surgical arms enter our bodies, repair the damage and quickly fix the point of entry on the way out ? I recently watched a futuristic movie called Transendence that has an episode very similar to the scenario I described earlier.
Crazy Idea #3 – Face Printers
We are always in search of infinite youth. Bioprinting offers truly incredible possibilities of its cosmetic application. What if we could scan our face when we are young and then “renew” it a few years later using the old 3D file? But what if we could upload a file from the internet and have someone else’s face printed on ours? To me, this possibility sounds scary and unnatural and I believe that there will have to be a lot of regulation in place to protect people from identity theft of a new level.