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3D-printed blood vessels in monkeys marks medical breakthrough towards artificial organs
A Chinese firm has made a major medical breakthrough by succeeding in developing 3D-printed blood vessels that have been successfully implanted into monkeys, which is a major step towards making artificial human organs possible in future.
Sichuan Revotek is a Chinese biotechnology firm that developed a 3D bioprinter back in 2015 which prints using stem cell-based bio ink, and it has now succeeded in printing out actual living, functioning blood vessels out of living stem cells in a Rhesus monkey. It has then succeeded in fusing the artificial vessels to existing cells in the monkey`s body.
3D-printing has been around for over two decades, known in the manufacturing industry as "additive manufacturing" or "rapid prototyping". It is a way to produce objects quickly without needing to wait weeks to receive the finished product from a factory in China, however "bioprinting" is a completely new field.
Bioprinting refers to the process of using 3D-printing to print out multiple human cells in one go. Numerous bioprinting companies and research institutions are now racing to develop the true motherload – artificial 3D-printed organs – but at the moment this is still incredibly difficult to accomplish, as it is hard to get cells to print out in the same way the body grows organs.
However, Sichuan Revotek may have found the way forward with its bio ink invention, known as "Biosynsphere", which adds nutrients and growth factors to the subject`s stem cells in order to stimulate the cells to grow into the types of cells needed to form a functioning blood vessel that is identical to other blood vessels in the body.
Because the stem cells come from the subject`s body, they will not be rejected by its immune system, and the stem cells are also obtained from fat tissue rather than embryos, which is safer.
"The bio ink`s capacity to develop collagen, a necessity for the tissue to mould into different shapes, is the first of its kind," Sichuan Revotek`s chief executive and chief scientist James Kang told CNN.