Scientists have figured out how to create blood vessels in 3D printed organs

By Nicole Lee From engadget

While 3D-printed organs sound like a great idea — imagine no longer waiting around for a transplant — a major hurdle for printing internal ones thus far have been creating intricate blood vessels and ventricles that are required for the organ to actually, you know, work. Now, a collaboration between scientists from the University of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and MIT have discovered a way to do just that. The team used an advanced bioprinter to create tiny interconnected fibers, and then coated them in human endothelial cells and a protein-based material, which hardens under light. They then removed the fibers, and voilà — a network of capillaries was born.

Lead author and University of Sydney researcher, Dr. Luiz Bertassoni, said: “While recreating little parts of tissues in the lab is something that we have already been able to do, the possibility of printing three-dimensional tissues with functional blood capillaries in the blink of an eye is a game changer.” We can’t help but agree. If you want to learn more about 3D-printed organs, we’ve got a handy explainer to do so below:

What you need to know about 3D-printed organs

By Mariella Moon From engadget

Sure, 3D printers that can spit out chocolates, create shoes, handcraft cars and help astronauts sound fun and magical, but a lot of scientists are working to make models that aren’t just fun. They’re developing 3D printers that can also save and change lives by printing out functional human organs. Think about it: If we can make organs on demand, patients don’t have to wait as long for transplanted organs. In the United States alone, 78,837 patients are waiting for organ donations (at the time of publication), but only 3,407 donations have been made since January 2014. Machines capable of creating functional human parts could significantly shorten — or nullify — that line. Sadly, we’re still at the early stages of the technology. As it turns out, printing working human organs is a lot more complex than printing out plastic toys.

WHAT IS IT?

Researchers have been looking into growing organs in labs for a long time, but it wasn’t until the late 1990s that bio-printing was thrust into the limelight. It was all thanks to the scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, who 3D-printed the synthetic building blocks they needed to grow human bladders. They didn’t print the actual bladders; it was only in the early 2000s that Clemson University bioengineer Thomas Boland started modifying ink-jet printers to dispense biological ink and make 3D objects.

In 2007, one of the first bio-printing companies was founded: Organovo. At the moment, Organovo’s printing out liver tissue samples used for drug testing and research. The company’s hoping to develop a functional liver in the near future. We’re getting close, but we’re not quite there yet.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

Let’s get this straight: While there’s a huge gap in complexity between printing an organ and printing a typical plastic figurine, the processes are quite similar. The machines used for both have cartridges and nozzles that squirt out ink (biological ink, in this instance), layer by layer on a platform. But, they do have a few key differences:

We know what most organs look like, but to be able to create them for individuals, scientists need to perform CT scans or MRIs on the patient. Then, they need to run the results through computer software to create a blueprint that’ll serve as their guide on how cells are positioned in each layer.

Instead of PVC plastics or metals, bio-printers use human cells of whatever organ they’re making, along with binding agents to keep everything together. Aside from the actual organ’s cells, printers could also use stem cells, bioengineered materials (like a polymer called alginate that was previously used to make aortic valve tissue) and other substitutes the human body won’t reject. For instance, in 2012, a 3D-printed titanium jaw was implanted into an 83-year-old woman, while a man in the US has been walking around with a 3D-printed plastic skull since 2013.

Once a specimen is printed, it needs to go into the incubator so the cells can fuse and start working together like a real organ.

That last part is where the real issue lies, and is mostly the reason why we don’t have organ-creation machines in hospitals worldwide yet.

WHAT’S THE HOLD UP?

According to Anthony Atala (who led the Wake Forest team that created those famous lab-grown bladders), it’s a combination of several issues. Prime among those issues is finding materials that can be used to create body parts, and then getting them to grow adequately outside the body. Most of all, though, you can’t just stick an organ fresh from a 3D printer inside a patient. As we’ve mentioned, real organs are complex, and just because the printed cells fused together doesn’t mean they’ll work as intended. In the words of Cornell engineer Hod Lipson:

“You can put the cells of a heart tissue in the right place together, but where’s the start button? The magic happens after printing has taken place.”

Lipson also notes that there’s still no software powerful enough to make very detailed organ models that researchers can consult before printing.

Aside from difficulties making a 3D-printed organ’s cells behave like the real thing, scientists also find it hard to create blood vessels. Organs need arteries, veins and capillaries to pump blood through them and deliver the nutrients they need to stay alive, but these are long, thin, tubular and… hard to print.

Still, it’s not like nobody’s trying: Just this May, a team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital used the sugar-based molecule agarose as blood vessel templates. Fraunhofer researchers have also been developing their own technique since 2011, and Harvard scientist Jennifer Lewis is looking into printing organs that already come with tiny spaces from the get-go for blood and nutrient flow.

THE FUTURE OF 3D-PRINTED ORGANS

Thus far, there have been quite a number of semi-successful attempts at printing organs. We say semi-successful because most of them aren’t functional, or they survive just a few days. Organovo, for instance, created a mini human liver that actually works — except it lasts only 40 days. A team from the University of Louisville, on the other hand, successfully printed heart valves and small veins in April, with hopes of making a functional heart using a patient’s cells in the future. Let’s not forget those Cornell bioengineers who crafted that faux ear (which works just fine, by the way) out of living cells and injectable gels.

According to Atala, though, roughly 90 percent of the patients in the organ waiting list are looking for kidneys. Maybe that kind of demand is what fueled a group of Chinese scientists to develop small, working printed kidneys, which unfortunately only stay alive for four months. Atala himself is looking for ways to make a kidney via 3D printing; he even showed off a non-working model on stage during his TED talk (seen below).

During that same presentation, the surgeon shared how the technology could mature. He spoke of a future where flatbed scanners could look at and assess a patient’s wounds and then go back up to print directly on the patient’s body. Before we get there, bio-printed tissues and organs are headed to labs and med schools, followed by perfect specimens that can be transplanted into the bodies of waiting patients soon after.

For more on this story go to: http://www.engadget.com/2014/07/02/scientists-figured-out-how-to-print-blood-vessels/?ncid=rss_truncated

 

Code for the Caribbean Fellows partner with local agencies to design two awesome apps!

By Matthew McNaughton From Code for America

In Jamaica, praedial larceny — the theft of agricultural produce and livestock — robs the agriculture industry of more than US $5 million each year. It destroys

livelihoods, creates mistrust in communities, and disincentivizes investment in a

sector that employs almost 20% of the Jamaican population. Despite government efforts to curb the plague though various programs, praedial larceny remains

one of the largest inhibitors to the development of the island’s agriculture industry.

Combatting this issue requires the cooperation of multiple public sector organizations; such as, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Rural Agriculture Development Authority (RADA), the Jamaica Agricultural Society (JAS), and the police force. The involvement of private sector entities is also necessary, given that farmers, markets, retailers, and vendors all interface to the problem. The dynamics of the problem also vary within different contexts; for example, across rural and urban settings, and across varying definitions of “acceptable theft,” and “reasonable consequence.” Legally speaking this type of theft is limited to crops, however the most common understanding of praedial larceny also includes farm animals.

Over the last 7 months a team comprised of, Code for the Caribbean Fellows — Rory Walker (pictured, far right), Staysean Daley (pictured, center) and Varun Baker (not pictured) — RADA, the JAS, and members of the police force have worked to address this issue. The team was also supported by local and international organizations, including the SlashRoots Foundation, the Mona School of Business & Management, and the International Development Research Centre of Canada. Together, they piloted different approaches to understanding and countering the dynamics of praedial larceny.

The Fellows started this process by immersing themselves in affected communities, talking with individuals that interfaced with praedial larceny, and shadowing farmers, extension officers, and police to understand their experiences. This gave the team and the partners a much deeper understanding of the problem ecosystem, as well as the social, institutional, and political dynamics that existed. As a result, the team decided to focus their efforts on two major projects:

Harvest API is an open data platform for sharing agriculture data. It includes information on registered farmers, farms, agriculture production, and price information for the entire island. The team built HarvestAPI to remove the friction that prevented various stakeholders from gaining access to information they needed to make informed decisions. It also aligned with RADA’s goals of encouraging innovation in the agriculture sector, and launched with two platform partners that are incorporating data from Harvest into their startup’s products, AgroCentral and CleverGrocer. With the launch of Harvest, RADA becomes the first government agency to release agriculture open data in the Caribbean!

The Fellows also produced an app called Clip, which uses data from HarvestAPI. Clip is an SMS agriculture information service that aims to provide on-demand access to agriculture data, using technologies people already have, SMS and mobile phones. After learning about the success police officers in the parish of St. Thomas, a parish with previously high rates of praedial larceny incidents, team decided to build Clip. They set up strategic checkpoints to monitor agriculture transport in and out of the parish. However, one of the main challenges the police experienced was getting consistent access to people in the office who could provide the data they needed to make judgment calls in the field. Clip was created to remove that bottleneck and support a process that already seemed to be working.

The Code for the Caribbean Pilot Results Launch brought together stakeholders from across Jamaica’s agriculture and technologies sectors, including RADA’s Executive Director Lenworth Fulton, and the Junior Minister of Technology, Hon Julian Robinson. It was another opportunity for RADA, the MoA, technologists, law enforcement, and members of farming communities to come together to talk about ways to address praedial larceny. The event spotlighted the work of the Fellowship team, allowing them to present their user research and unveil Clip and HarvestAPI to the public for the first time.

Praedial larceny remains an endemic problem in Jamaica and one of the greatest threats to the sustainability of the agriculture industry. However, with RADA’s leadership and help from partners like the JAS and police force, we have contributed to removing some of the sector’s silos and opened up the conversation from more people to participate. Through the Code for the Caribbean Fellowship, we have started a process that we hope will bring about real change in how we approach problems in Jamaica, and the broader Caribbean.

For more information about Code for the Caribbean please visit our website at: http://www.codeforthecaribbean.org

Matthew McNaughton is the Executive Director of the SlashRoots Foundation, a civic tech non-profit that leverages technology to create solutions to social problems endemic to the Caribbean region. His work focuses on the role of data and information in improving service delivery.

For more on this story go to: http://www.codeforamerica.org/blog/2014/07/02/code-for-the-caribbean-fellows-partner-with-local-agencies-to-design-two-awesome-apps/