{"id":97433,"date":"2016-10-28T10:14:32","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T14:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/?p=97433"},"modified":"2016-10-28T07:14:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T11:14:59","slug":"biomedicine-how-to-print-a-heart-on-a-chip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2016\/10\/biomedicine-how-to-print-a-heart-on-a-chip\/","title":{"rendered":"Biomedicine: How to \u201cPrint\u201d a Heart on a Chip"},"content":{"rendered":"
October 28, 2016<\/div>
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By WallStreetDaily.com<\/u><\/a> \"Biomedicine:<\/p>\n

\u201cAdditive manufacturing\u201d is a fancy phrase for \u201c3-D printing.\u201d You\u2019ve probably seen a lot of pretty cool things made that way. Researchers are now working on replacement parts\u2026 for your body.<\/strong><\/i><\/p>\n

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\u201cBiomedical research has relied on animal studies and conventional cell cultures for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the first line of the abstract from a paper published October 24, 2016, in the journal Nature Materials.<\/em><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s the setup for an incredible punchline: a heart fabricated on a chip.<\/p>\n

In technical terms, what the team of Harvard University researchers describes is \u201ca facile route for fabricating a new class of instrumented cardiac micro-physiological devices via multi-material three-dimensional (3-D) printing.\u201d<\/p>

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We\u2019re not talking about a device that can be implanted to function in a human body.<\/p>\n

But what the team from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences has combined to do represents a significant advance for \u201cadditive manufacturing.\u201d<\/p>\n

What it can do is \u201cmimic the structure and function of native tissue\u201d and establish a new way to study human health and disease in the laboratory.<\/p>\n

Up until now, 3-D tissue fabrication and data collection had been considered prohibitively expensive.<\/p>\n

But this heart on a chip is created in a single, multi-material, automated process. Sensors are built in to track the \u201cbeating\u201d heart. Heart muscle cells \u2014 cardiomyocytes \u2014 are added after the fabrication process and grow in the chip\u2019s eight chambers.<\/p>\n

What it can do is \u201cmimic the structure and function of native tissue\u201d and establish a new way to study human health and disease in the laboratory.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Researchers can then introduce drugs or create environmental situations that stress the tissue. Because sensors are built in during the initial fabrication process, it allows for near-instant transmission of data to measure how tissue responds to external stimuli.<\/p>\n

And Kit Parker, a bioengineer at the Wyss Institute and a co-author of the paper, told IEEE Spectrum<\/em> that this design process is not limited to the heart: \u201cThe gut, airways, vascular system, tongue, and skeletal muscle are all candidates for this type of mass-manufactured organ-chip.\u201d<\/p>\n

Implanting living, functioning 3-D-printed human tissue into actual humans is a little further down the road.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s likely that the first implantable \u201ctissue\u201d made via the 3-D printing process will be much more rudimentary \u2014 a fabricated liver, for example.<\/p>\n

One of the critical hurdles is creating tissue that can support vascular and neural generation so that implanted tissue can survive and thrive for the long term.<\/p>\n

But researchers at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) have described a viable \u201c3-D bioprinting system to produce human-scale tissue constructs with structural integrity,\u201d an \u201cintegrated tissue-organ printer (ITOP) that can fabricate stable\u2026 constructs of any shape.\u201d<\/p>\n

WFIRM has so far focused on jaw and skull bone and muscle tissue. But \u201cfuture development of the ITOP is being directed to the production of tissues for human applications and to the building of more complex tissues and solid organs.\u201d<\/p>\n

That WFIRM\u2019s process integrates bone, muscle, and cartilage and can feasibly introduce organ fabrication is a major leap for 3-D printing of human parts.<\/p>\n

WFIRM\u2019s efforts aren\u2019t limited to growing tissue and organs. Scientists there have also developed a \u201c\u2018metastasis-on-a-chip\u2019 system believed to be one of the first laboratory models of cancer spreading from one 3-D tissue to another.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of WFIRM, has also described a \u201c\u2018body on a chip\u2019 that allows the testing of effectiveness of potential treatments on the body as a system\u201d in an August 2016 interview with the journal Transplantation<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That WFIRM\u2019s process integrates bone, muscle, and cartilage and can feasibly introduce organ fabrication is a major leap for 3-D printing of human parts. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Atala also explains the intersection of organ transplantation with critical aspects of regenerative medicine.<\/p>\n

This work will help us understand how tumors expand and extend into other parts of a person\u2019s body \u2014 and personalize cancer treatment.<\/p>\n

Stem cell technology is a critical aspect of organ regeneration and organ building science.<\/p>\n

Engineering new, solid organs such as the heart, kidney, liver, lungs, and pancreas requires \u201cmillions of cells\u201d to \u201censure oxygen supply\u201d until they integrate with the host body.<\/p>\n

Stem cells can be used to regenerate and restore function so entirely new that tissue isn\u2019t even necessary. And Dr. Atala and his team are exploring \u201cthe bioprinting of organs and organ \u2018wafers\u2019 that could help boost function\u201d short of total replacement.<\/p>\n

WFIRM is also engaged in CRISPR study, focused on how gene editing can be applied to organ restoration.<\/p>\n

Futurists, like Peter Diamandis, founder and chairman of the X Prize Foundation and co-founder and executive chairman of Singularity University, talk about the \u201cunexpected consequences\u201d of \u201ctechnology convergence\u201d \u2014 the kind of stuff that happens when a number of different \u201cexponential technologies all explode onto the scene at once.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what\u2019s happening with \u201cadditive manufacturing\u201d \u2014 the fancy phrase for \u201c3-D printing\u201d \u2014 organ transplantation and regenerative medicine.<\/p>\n

As trying as these times may seem, they\u2019re pretty interesting, too.<\/p>\n

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Old Things New<\/h2>\n

HBO seems to have (finally) done it again.<\/p>\n

After several misses, the premium cable television network has a new \u201cprestige drama\u201d to carry on the tradition of The Sopranos<\/em>, Six Feet Under<\/em>, and Deadwood<\/em> and maintain its place in the firmament after Game of Thrones<\/em> is settled in 2018.<\/p>\n

It had to make an \u201cold thing new\u201d \u2014 Michael Crichton\u2019s 1973 film \u2014 but HBO\u2019s presentation of Jonathan Nolan\u2019s and Lisa Joy\u2019s conception of Westworld is startling for its cinematography, story-telling-within-an-enticingly-enigmatic story, and sophisticated performances.<\/p>\n

Particularly compelling is the credit sequence, which integrates 3-D printing of human tissue as it may play out in the very near future.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s just the precursor for a fascinating study of artificial intelligence, the development of consciousness, and the meaning of existence. The mystery ain\u2019t bad, either.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another pretty cool convergence.<\/p>\n

Smart Investing,<\/p>\n

David Dittman
\nEditorial Director, Wall Street Daily<\/i><\/p>\n

The post Biomedicine: How to \u201cPrint\u201d a Heart on a Chip<\/a> appeared first on Wall Street Daily<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By WallStreetDaily.com \u201cAdditive manufacturing\u201d is a fancy phrase for \u201c3-D printing.\u201d You\u2019ve probably seen a lot of pretty cool things made that way. Researchers are now working on replacement parts\u2026 for your body. \u201cBiomedical research has relied on animal studies and conventional cell cultures for decades.\u201d That\u2019s the first line of the abstract from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97433"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97440,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97433\/revisions\/97440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}