
Living skin can be 3D-printed, with blood vessels - EndXA
https://news.rpi.edu/content/2019/11/01/living-skin-can-now-be-3d-printed-blood-vessels-included
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iandanforth
For some perspective on why this matters. If you've never had a serious skin
issue it's hard to understand how traumatic it is. I had basal cell carcinoma
(a treatable skin cancer) in my early 30's on my nose. The treatment was
careful excision of flesh from the affected area. The thing you can't prepare
yourself for is how much and how deep the necessary removal is. Imagine a
stack of 5 dimes taken out of your nose, and in it's place, a dark and gaping
hole.

It is impossible to look at oneself in the mirror without a sense of revulsion
and horror. It then takes months of careful wound care for flesh to regrow. My
case was simple, and I healed as quickly as could be expected. Most people who
need skin grafts are not so lucky.

I sincerely hope this technology is proven effective and makes its way out to
the real world as soon as possible.

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sungam
I agree that 3d printing is potentially of value for tissue engineering,
however in this case the printed tissue is functionally no different from a
full thickness skin graft which is used routinely for reconstruction of nasal
defects and has significant limitations e.g. inability to reconstruct a deeper
defect and colour/texture mismatch.

COI: Mohs surgeon

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iandanforth
Ah well :) Good to know, thanks!

Btw, what does "COI" stand for in this context? That's a new one to me.

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kbutler
Conflict of Interest?

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nickparker
Does anyone have access to the full text? Sci-hub hasn't got any proxies for
this apparently.

I'm curious what geometry they're printing the the EC/PC bio-ink in, eg
printing coarse grained vasculature networks.

If they're leaning too heavily on self-assembly I would start to question the
term 3D printing here. Particularly if they're, for example, just printing
homogeneous layers of the different inks and the syringe-on-a-gantry was just
a readily available way to do so.

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tbaltazar
It’s round and 2cm in diameter when we do in vivo studies in mice. But with
the printer we can potentially scale up and make any shape we want. The
advantage is that we can create personalized shapes with different thicknesses
to fit the wound site. You’re correct: in this study 3D printing is being used
as a tool for high throughput production of skin tissue. This will be
important to make this a cost-effective treatment. However, we are also
working on the inclusion of hair follicles which require patterning and later
self-assembly. Microvasculature in skin doesn’t really require patterning but
higher caliber vessels in other organs, such as heart, will likely need it.

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doc_gunthrop
> Karande said more work will need to be done to address the challenges
> associated with burn patients, which include the loss of nerve and vascular
> endings.

Slightly off-topic, but it may be high time for a Darkman reboot.

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ngold
Can we keep Liam Neeson?

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hanniabu
Would this allow for replacing of scar tissue? Essentially cut out the skin
you want to remove and replace it with this? Or does it not quite work like
that? Btw when I say scar I'm not talking about a cut line, since the will
likely be a noticeable scar like between the new and old skin, I'm referring
to larger ones like burn scars. Wondering if this could also be used to
replace things like vitiligo patches.

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temporalparts
Which organ is closest to being 3D printed for real patients? I've seen
articles about 3D printed livers and hearts almost a decade ago.

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MuffinFlavored
Is the final product like... electronic? What is the input material to 3D
print this and what is the output?

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ben_w
Input is cultured cells, output is a functional biological structure. In
principle it can be anything from a simple part like an earlobe too something
complicated like your entire body outside your brain combined, though the
latter is very far away at this point.

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TotempaaltJ
Why not the brain?

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JulianMorrison
The brain is a 3d structure with immense complexity tightly packed and out of
reach of any non-destructive probe, and the details matter. In fact, we don't
know yet, to what extent they matter - or for that matter, which details.
(Structural obviously. Electrical probably not, as that recovers from erasure.
Chemical? Quantum? Answers are guesswork right now.)

The last person I read talking about how to scan a brain in detail was Anders
Sandberg and his method would require death, brain removal, slice-n-dice,
vitrification, microtoming and staining, and microscope scanning on an
enormous parallel gang of microscopes, followed by computer assisted
reassembly into a 3d model, and analysis so that neurons and their connections
can be mapped.

Now imagine having all that data and trying to reverse it into a connected,
living organ. Even if you could place all the cells and their wires that
precisely, could you keep them in situ and oxygenated as you're printing
billions and billions of individual pieces? And finish it before doomsday? And
avoid it suffering the sensations of half-a-brain that is inexplicably not
dying as it gradually grows towards sentience, for the duration?

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tbaltazar
Hi everyone. I’m the first author of this paper. The full text should be
available in the “just accepted” section of Tissue Engineering part A. It will
come out later in print in a special issue on “3D printing for tissue
engineering”. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have about it!

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jcims
What about intestines? I know someone with a ‘permanent’ ileostomy and I’m
banking on this kind of technology to let them poop again.

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missosoup
TFA says the grafts were rejected by host by the way.

The progress shown was that the grafts now have a functional-ish vascular
system that booted up.

Still a long way to go.

