(USA)
Researchers at a Boston hospital have pioneered a 3D bioprinting technique that crafts structures complex enough to replace damaged body tissue.
The team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) has developed a method to bioprint ‘tubular structures that better mimic native vessels and ducts in the body’, it said in a press statement. BWH’s breakthrough could potentially transform the role bioprinting plays in repairing the building blocks of the body; as its ‘technique allows fine-tuning of the printed tissues’ properties, such as number of layers and ability to transport nutrients’.
“We’re currently optimizing the parameters and biomaterial even further,” explains Yu Shrike Zhang, PhD, associate bioengineer in BWH’s Department of Medicine. “Our goal is to create tubular structures with enough mechanical stability to sustain themselves in the body.”
The study by BWH follows other milestones in the field, including the quest to bioprint transplantable human organs, such as the heart and sections of the kidney.
