
Israeli Scientists 'Print' World's First 3D Heart with Human Tissue - spking
https://m.jpost.com/HEALTH-SCIENCE/Israeli-scientists-print-first-3D-heart-586902
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yohann305
Does anyone here know about this domain? Could you tell us if this is really a
new achievement?

Also, it seems to me, 3d printing a heart is one of the most complex organs to
replicate. Wouldn't we start by mastering 3d-printing of less complex (and
still useful?) human parts such as valves, veins, or hair?

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sonofgod
So we have been handling the low-hanging fruit: bladders, skin, urethras and
cartilage were being clinically trialled (ie. put into people) as of September
2018.

[https://3dprint.com/224629/3d-bioprinted-
bladder/](https://3dprint.com/224629/3d-bioprinted-bladder/)

The complexity of the heart is weird -- there's a lot of physical structure
that's important, but at the same time I believe there's relatively little
differentiation: it's mostly muscle; it's not a kidney or a lung. It's
probably directly the opposite challenges to skin -- skin probably has more
internal differences, but the physical layout are likely to just be laminar
sheets.

(I am not an expert on biology.)

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drchiu
I’d be curious to know how they ensured the printed heart’s electrical
circuits communicated properly. A normal functioning heart has its own
pacemaker, sending electrical signals in a coordinated manner. I suspect that
this is what the researchers were alluding to when they said they’re trying to
teach the heart to function. This might be the harder part of heart synthesis
as it may require the promotion of specific cell to cell connections.
Interesting development, which hopefully one day can fix a lot of medical
pathologies.

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Tharkun
If they can print a structurally complete heart -- even one without a working
SA node -- they would probably be able to print working replacement valves.
That would be huge news. Animal replacement valves don't last forever. Nor do
artificial ones. Having a working replacement grown/printed would be
incredibly valuable for lots of people.

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bane
This is exciting. I've been noticing lots of biotech coming out of Israel
these days (etc. lab grown meat). Is there some regulatory permissiveness
that's enabling these to be in Israel as opposed to the U.S. or elsewhere?

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ghostly_s
1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_r...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations)

The Israeli state at large is massively subsidized by the US govt., which is
politically palatable under the auspices of "National Security", whilst
subsidizing science and research in the homeland is increasingly decried as
"socialism" and other such conservative scarewords. In recent years the amount
of direct US aid to Israel (a nation with 3% the population of the US) has
been half the budget of the NSF.

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avip
paper
[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.201900...](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/advs.201900344)

