Нow did this profession come about

If you have studied the professions of biotechnologist, bioinformatics and genetic consultant on our website, then you know that in our time at the cellular-molecular level, scientists have made unprecedented progress - cellular biostructures can be changed, rearranged and developed for specific tasks.

You probably know that the possibilities of modern medicine allow a person with any diseased organ, such as kidneys, liver or even heart, to transplant a healthy organ from a donor. However, due to the lack of such donors and due to the problems of adaptation of their organs to the patient's body, there are many problems in transplantation. The revolutionary technology of three-dimensional bioprinting can solve them.

According to the professor of the University of Virginia, scientific director of the laboratory "3D Bioprinting Solutions" Vladimir Mironov, who, in fact, is the manufacturer of the first full-fledged bioprinter, - the new technology of bioprinting will completely relieve humanity from the need to use donor organs and will solve the problem of biological compatibility in the near future. transplanted organs and tissues.

Let's see how this technology works and what things an organ designer can do in the process.

Stages in the regeneration of organs

Selecting cells for printing

The most important process that affects the success of the entire operation. Cells for bioprinting are taken from bone marrow, adipose tissue, umbilical cord, pulp of the patient's teeth. For a certain organ, cells of one type are suitable, for another, others.

Recent experiments on mice, which underwent spontaneous regeneration of implanted bones and blood vessels, showed that studies of the interaction between the "host" cells and the "guest" cells will help form a whole science, thanks to which it will be possible to create absolutely any tissue.

Organ modeling

Before proceeding directly to "printing", the task of the designer is to assess the biological characteristics of the patient and model the organ - both in terms of its unique shape, on a computer - and in terms of tissue-level coincidence, which should be one hundred percent suitable for the affected organ. Computer reconstruction of the kidney, liver, especially the heart, is a very complicated process, because each person has these organs unique in their structure. The 3D drawing of the organ created by a specialist goes to the laboratory, where the material for bioprinting - spheroids - is made.

Making spheroids

Printing in a bioprinter is carried out using spheroids - large compounds of cells in the form of balls. It's like ink in a regular printer. Special robots collect the cell mixture into small wells and sort it as different tissues are built from different spheroids. Then the layers of spheroids are connected - the so-called compaction of the tissue occurs, its compaction, so that, as a result, an organ of normal size is obtained.

Bioprinting

So, a bioprinter can produce tissues and organs from cells - usually stem cells taken from the patient himself - for example, from adipose tissue. Thus, the affected organ is regenerated from the body's own cells, so the problem of "adaptation" of cells from a foreign body disappears by itself! A mixture of cells - spheroids - loaded into a bioprinter is slowly poured onto a specially modeled organ skeleton and forms it.

The robot uses a syringe with spheroids, acting in three-dimensional space and forming a future organ according to its 3D model. Further, tissue growth begins in the bioreactor (the device where bioprinting takes place). When it is over, the organ can be put into the body.