(light techno music) - [voiceover] this is a reprap, a popular open source 3d printer in the lab at the university of pennsylvania. it's being used to printblood vessel networks out of sugar for research in regenerative medicine.
growth of 3d printing industry, scientists can create small samples of organ tissue in the lab. but before they canmake human sized organs, they need a way to keep the cells on the inside alive.
living organs are fed by blood vessels, which branch and grow to meet cells' nutritional needs. cell biologists can't yet grow networks of blood vessels in a block of tissue, so bioengineers from penn and mit turned the problem inside out. using the reprap 3d printer, they craft templates of blood vessel networks out of sugar. the printer builds up the walls of a mold, then draws the sugaracross it in filaments.
when the sugar has hardened, the researchers pour cells suspended in a gel into the mold, surrounding the filaments. after the gel solidifies, the researchers dissolve the sugar, which flows out of the tissue through the vessels it created. in one experiment, the researchers pumped nutrient-filled liquid through the tissue. they found that the cells on the inside survived
and improved their function when these networks were in place.
this 3d printing method makes it easy to experiment with different network designs. it can produce templatesthat are stable enough to ship to cell biologists around the world.
