3D bioprinting: From sci-fi to real-world medical potential – The Front Page

3D bioprinting is a technology that uses 3D printing to create tissues and organs from living cells and biomaterials. Photo / 123rf

In the new science fiction film Mickey 17, Robert Pattinson’s character Mickey Barnes is killed and each time he dies, a new copy of his body is printed out.

It’s a classic far-flung sci-fi premise – but the technology it’s based on is far more science than fiction.

3D bioprinting is a technology that uses 3D printing to create tissues and organs from living cells and biomaterials. The tech has been evolving rapidly over the last couple of decades.

Mayo Clinic researchers are using it to produce tissue models of different body parts to study damaged or diseased tissues and organs. They imagine a day when a 3D bioprinter could mould living cells into a therapy or cure for disorders.

In 2023, astronauts on the International Space Station were doing their part – evaluating the printing and processing of cardiac tissue samples. Due to the near-weightlessness of the space station’s orbit, tissues grow in three dimensions without such support.

University of Queensland’s Professor Sašo Ivanovski is involved in research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine and has led a clinical trial where clinicians successfully used a custom-made 3D-printed bone scaffold to rebuild part of a man’s jawbone.

He told The Front Page that 3D bioprinting involves equipment that creates a 3D structure, layer by layer.

“3D bioprinting is special because it involves the printing of actual cells. So it’s a living structure that is being printed from a bio-ink which contains cells.

“It is something that’s been around as a concept for quite a while. I think it’s been about 25 years, 1999 was the first time it was reported,” he said.

When it comes to what we’re able to print now, Ivanovski said 3D skin transplantation is probably one area that has been best developed and trialled in humans.

“But rarely do we transplant. There is now more and more implantation of certain types of 3D-printed devices. Usually, orthopa–edics made from titanium, for example, is something that’s being done more, more and more.

“But if we’re thinking about the category of implantables that are also resolving, which means that they get that the original material that carries the cells or the original material that’s implanted gets over time replaced by the patient’s own tissue, that’s fairly rare in itself,” he said.

Printing a new organ or limb for a patient is something that’s decades away, partly due to the body’s ability to reject the printed material.

“In fact, it is not really widely available because there’s that possibility of rejection.”

Ivanovski said it would probably be another 20 or 30 years before something like this technology can be done, and available for everyday clinical application.

“There’s probably a number of things that need to be solved, a big part of the printing is the bio-ink.

“The material that carries the cells is incredibly important because the cells have to stay alive and that’s very dependent on the bio-inks that carry those cells. And there is an awful lot of work that needs to be done in that space.

“Like any cell therapies, there are issues around where you get the cells. Is it just from the patients themselves and put it back into them? That’s fine. But then, that’s a very customised treatment, which carries a large amount of cost. So, can you get cells more readily available and standardised for these sorts of treatments - and ethically do that, safely?”

He said in 100 or 200 years, the transplantation of 3D bio-printed organs could become the norm.

“We’ve seen some of this in science fiction movies where that can take place at the point of treatment. So someone, for example, has an accident, and loses an arm. The doctor can have a device that can 3D print another arm that can then be attached to the living body.

“That’s, if we’re really dreaming, where this technology could ultimately lead. The idea is that, yes, you can 3D print, you can do it very quickly, and it can be highly biocompatible, and it can certainly save lives,” he said.

Listen to the full episode to hear more about 3D bioprinting and how far away we could see it being routinely used.

The Front Page is a daily news podcast from the New Zealand Herald, available to listen to every weekday from 5am. The podcast is presented by Chelsea Daniels, an Auckland-based journalist with a background in world news and crime/justice reporting who joined NZME in 2016.

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