BUFFALO, NY – It looks like science fiction: A machine immerses in a shallow barrel of translucent yellow cast and takes out a life-size hand.
But the seven-second video, which is being accelerated from 19 minutes, is real.
The hand, which takes six hours to create using conventional 3D printing methods, shows what Buffalo University engineers claim is advancing toward 3D-printed human tissues and organs – biotechnology that could ultimately save many lives that lost due to the shortage of donor organs. .
“The technology we have developed is 10-50 times faster than the industry standard, and it works with large sample sizes that were previously very difficult to achieve,” says co-lead author Ruogang Zhao, PhD, associate professor of the study. biomedical engineering.
The work is described in a study published in the journal on February 15. Advanced healthcare materials.
It focuses on a 3D printing method called stereolithography and jelly-like materials, known as hydrocarbons, which are used to create, among other things, diapers, contact lenses and scaffolding in tissue engineering.
The latter application is particularly useful in 3D printing, and it is something that the research team has spent a great deal of effort on to achieve its incredibly fast and accurate 3D printing technique.
“Our method allows for the rapid pressure of centimeter hydrogel models. This significantly reduces the deformation of the parts and cellular injuries due to the prolonged exposure to environmental stress that you usually see in conventional 3D printing methods,” says the study’s other co-lead author, Chi Zhou, PhD, associate professor of industrial and systems engineering.
According to researchers, the method is particularly suitable for printing cells with embedded vascular networks, an emerging technology that is expected to be a central part of the production of 3D-printed human tissues and organs.
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The first authors of the study include former UB students Nanditha Anandakrishnan, PhD, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Icahn School of Medicine on Mount Sinai, and Hang Ye, PhD, now a researcher at SprintRay Inc. laboratory, is also a first author.
Additional co-authors at EM come from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, which is a joint program of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering; the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; and the Department of Medicine in the Jacobs School.
Other co-authors of the study are from the VA Western New York Healthcare System; the Department of Self-Stress Biology at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center; and the Department of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering at Syracuse University.
The work was supported with funding from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering of the National Institutes of Health. The UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences provided additional funding.
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