My interest in Bioprinting arose because of health issues that plague my family. Both my sister and I suffer from a number of degenerative, life-limiting health conditions, including scoliosis. Bioprinting and its related technologies are the ultimate expression of the emerging technologies that will ensure in the near future, that health problems such as these do not become a barrier to living a full and productive life.
As these technologies continue to propagate, so too must a cultural shift occur that facilitates their introduction into mainstream consciousnesses. Bioprinting is expensive and experimental. It is the concept, custom-built Lamborghini of future medicine. However, what has become know as the Biohacking and Quantified Self communities have been largely responsible for increasing societal acceptance of innovative health technologies at the opposite end of the spectrum by promoting affordable devices and approaches to taking control of one’s health.
I am both a Biohacker and a Quantified Self enthusiast.
I monitor my sleep patterns, including the proportion of deeps sleep, to REM sleep, to light sleep using a device called the ZEO and alter them with timed doses of melatonin.
I fall asleep instantly using the Fisher Wallace Cranial Electro Stimulation Unit by running a low frequency current through the front of my brain.
I use the HeartMath EmWave to monitor my Heart Rate Variability, a measure calm and focus one can improve through training (commonly known as being in the zone).
I could go on, but the point here is that this movement is important to bioprinting. On the what hand, it is propagating interest in self-directed quantification and intervention in one’s own biology, raising market demand for devices that do so, which will eventually trickle-up to the high-end machines including the advance MRI bio-scanning techniques that enable us to digitize biological structures. In doing so, its also forcing us to learn how to manage Big Bio-Data. The best example of this, is the 100-fold decrease in price of genome analyses as it became available on the market.
Additionally, with its advocacy of P4 medicine, an approach to medicine that is Personal, Preventive, Personalized, and Participatory, it’s also making us healthier overall more likely to be able to to not need, resist, and recover from such an invasive procedure.
Lastly, its permeating pop-culture, and ensuring that these seemingly far-fetched projections are taken serious by consumers and investors. Once people witness the profound changes that these cheap approaches can have on their lives and performances, multi-layered 3d bio-fabrications doesn’t seem unfeasible, and its onset becomes increasingly desired.
Brace yourselves for bio-printing culture.
For a sampling of what this movement entails, check out a Meetup I used to organize (and still visit quite often).
http://www.meetup.com/Biohackers-NYC/
Also, visit Genspace, a do-it-yourself community Biology Lab in Brooklyn that should soon have a rudimentary bio-printing device. They hold workshops where lay-people can learn MIT-level biotech applications, and even hold exhibitions by bio-artists.
http://genspace.org/