Synthetic tissue folds from a sheet into a tubeVILLAR ET AL, SCIENCE/AAASThree-dimensional printers have used plastics and metals to make everything from dolls to planes to replica dinosaur skulls. Now, researchers at the University of Oxford have created a 3-D printer that extrudes grids of watery droplets that mimic the properties of living tissues.
These synthetic tissues can be printed with the consistency of brains or fat, and they can be loaded with proteins that allow them to conduct an electric current, like neurons, or be programmed to contract and fold like a sheet of muscle. The results, published today (April 4) in Science, could lead to new ways of packaging drugs or repairing damaged tissues.
“It's still too early to know how the technology will be used in different arenas, but it is nonetheless an important step forward for 3-D printing,” said Christopher Chen, a bioengineer from the University of Pennsylvania who was not involved in the study.
Although some 3-D printers have already been customized to print with actual cells, the researchers opted for a different approach. ...
