DesignNews reports on a University of Pennsyvania-led effort in regenerative medicine to build lab-grown organs out of a patient's own cells.
One solution that has gained attention is to "print" cells for the vasculature, layer by layer, leaving openings for the blood vessels as required. Yet even this approach has had its share of setbacks. When blood is pumped through the vessels, the seams get pushed apart.
A team of bioengineers from the University of Pennsylvania and MIT took inspiration from a visit to a Body Worlds exhibit and decided to address the problem in a different way. They've applied the open-source RepRap 3D printer as a foundational technology solution and made templates of blood vessel networks out of sugar.
Original source: Design News
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