The Future of 3D Printing?
Ahead of next week's FUSE Conference at MIT, I wanted to share some thoughts on the potential ramifications of the following video. Bioprinting complex structures has suffered from numerous challenges, most notably print size restrictions due to gravity. Rapid Liquid Printing if combined with foaming cellular matrices and collagen liquids could dramatically change this, allowing the manufacture of large scale scaffolds and structures upon which differentiated cells could be grown in a bioreactor. Vascular, muscular and nerve growth could be cultivated in layers to produce skin-like sleeves, useful for treating burns, gastrointestinal meshing and breast tissue replacement, among the many possibilities. The US medical community and NIH in particular should encourage growth in the field while observing federal limitations regarding fetal tissue related stem cell research. This is an important development that shouldn't be marred by hasty science, less we throw out the baby with the bath water.