3D Printers May Soon Produce Human Organs

We've heard of 3-D printers producing weapons, chocolates, and even jewelry. But human organs? Now that's groundbreaking.

For many years, medical researchers have been working with biological components in manually recreating human cells in laboratories to fashion skin tissue, blood vessels, and other living body parts, CNN noted. However, creating "full organs" have proven to be much more difficult, given their "complicated cell structures."

Could machines, like 3-D printers, be the answer?

"3-D printers, which because of their precise process, can reproduce the vascular systems required to make organs viable. Scientists are already using the machines to print tiny strips of organ tissue. And while printing whole human organs for surgical transplants is still years away, the technology is rapidly developing," the news source added.

3D Printer World's editor-in-chief Mike Titsch said that the mechanical process isn't that difficult. "The tricky part is the materials, which are biological in nature," he pointed out. "It isn't like 3-D printing plastic or metal. Plastic doesn't die if you leave it sitting on an open-air shelf at room temperature for too long."

The possibility of printing organs is a cause for hope and excitement among medical researchers, as they can use them in testing drugs or vaccines and do away with the "less accurate methods such as tests on animals or on synthetic models."

Most significantly, biological 3D printing can help supply essential organs for transplants. "Some 18 people die in the United States each day waiting in vain for transplants because of a shortage of donated organs," CNN noted.

How does bioprinting work?

"Scientists harvest human cells from biopsies or stem cells, then allow them to multiply in a petri dish. The resulting mixture, a sort of biological ink, is fed into a 3-D printer, which is programmed to arrange different cell types, along with other materials, into a precise three-dimensional shape. Doctors hope that when placed in the body, these 3-D-printed cells will integrate with existing tissues," CNN explained.

There has been some success in this procedure in the past. Last year, a windpipe produced by a 3-D printer using the patient's own stem cells was able to save its 2-year-old recipient.

"Three-D printing allows you to be closer to what is happening in real life, where you have multiple layers of cells," said gastroenterologist Dr. Jorge Rakela of the Mayo Clinic. "This is an exciting new area of medicine. It has the potential for being a very important breakthrough."

WATCH: