By Gary M. Kaye, Chief Content Officer, Tech50+ (www.tech50plus.com) and Christine Piccarillo
In the iconic 1967 movie “The Graduate” a young Dustin Hoffman, playing new college graduate Benjamin Braddock is asked about his future plans. This memorable dialogue followed:
Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
While Mr. McGuire was right about the future of plastics, we doubt he ever imagined that one day those plastics would be used by 3D printers to make hands or other body parts. It’s only been a few years since 3D printers went from being the stuff of science fiction to reality, and even then the field really looked more like a novelty. Now it’s turned into an amazing tool to replicate everything from guns to noses.
The first 3D printers we saw made small plastic pieces of jewelry, doodads, even small parts for other devices. But it hasn’t taken long for the technology to find its way into an incredible array of endeavors, not the least of which has been medicine and biotechnology.
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Science fiction had been predicting for generations that we’d be able to replace broken body parts with manufactured ones. And step-by-step, 3D printing technology is moving us from substituting metal and plastic for body parts to a day when science will be able to “print” new organs from our own cells.
Take the case of eight-year-old Luke Dennison, who enjoys the benefits of 3D printing technology every day. “Luke was born with a condition called symbrachydactyly, which caused the fingers of his left hand not to develop,” said his father, Gregg Dennison. With the help of a global volunteer group called e-NABLE, which provides ready-to-print designs, the Dennisons are able to print functional hand devices for Luke right in their home.
Luke’s 3D printed hand allows him to hold and pick up things and even play catch. “Having the hands has helped make it easier for him to carry things, surely, but the greatest benefit has been the boost to his confidence. Instead of going through life thinking of his limb difference as a negative, he views it as a positive because the 3D printed hands make him special,” Dennison said. Luke is even able to participate in the design process himself, picking out certain colors and designs. His 3D printed hands have earned him the nickname ‘Little Cool Hand Luke.’
A 3D printing primer
Though they are a bit more complex, 3D printers follow the same general idea as that computer printer you already have at home or in your office. Jonathan Jaglom, CEO of 3D printer manufacturer MakerBot, explained it thus: “When you write a document on your computer, you create a digital version, then press ‘print’ to create a physical copy. 3D printers work the same way, with one more dimension.”
3D printing differs from traditional 2D printing, however, because it is, in Jaglom’s words, “ an additive manufacturing process in which an object is built over time by stacking layers of material directly on top of each other. These layers fuse together to create 3D printed objects,” The printers MakerBot produces are loaded with a spool of material, usually plastic, which is melted down and then precision-layered to form the new object. This printing process can take anywhere from a few minutes to several days, depending on the size of the object.
In the rapidly evolving world of 3D printing, plastics to replace body parts like a hand is just the starting point. 3D printers are using chemicals and even human and animal cells to create prosthetics, print pharmaceuticals, and even grow new nose and ear cartilage. That’s what’s taking place in one major New York City medical center, “The project, in its most general sense, is aimed at replacing ears, primarily in children who are born without them,” said Dr. Jason Spector, a plastic surgeon and professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Weill Cornell Medical College. Spector and his colleague Dr. Lawrence Bonassar have pioneered a project where 3D printed materials are used as a framework to ‘grow’ an ear that looks, feels, and acts like the real thing.
“We can recreate, using 3D photography, an exact replica of the child’s normal ear and we can flip that 180 degrees and recreate an image of a perfectly matched contralateral other-side ear. Then, thanks to bioprinting, we can precisely make, in three dimensions, a construct, which in this case is made of collagen and cow ear cartilage cells, which is replicated with extremely high fidelity,” Spector said. To create this new ear, Spector uses bioprinting, which is a close cousin of regular 3D printing. While 3D printing generally uses a synthetic material such as plastic, bioprinting uses living biologic materials and cells to produce its creations.
Spector is optimistic about the future of his project. Though these bioengineered ears have yet to be implanted on a live patient, he believes that human trials are only two or three years away. “The ear that comes out after a few months of incubation is very natural feeling. It bends like a natural ear, it looks like natural ear cartilage, and, if you look at it under the microscope, it resembles exactly natural ear cartilage.”
3D printing is also being used to cure diseases. Dr. Wei Sun, a researcher and professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics at Drexel University, has found a way to use 3D printing in cancer research.
“We use cancer cells as building blocks,” says Dr. Sun. “Then, we use 3D printing technology to assemble the cancer cells outside of the body to build what we call the ‘individual 3D tumor model.’” Dr. Sun and his team use a process similar to bioprinting to effectively print out a tumor. Though they are still using only animal cells, the process will eventually be adapted for human use and will allow doctors to create a personalized replica of a particular patient’s cancer.
In addition to tumor models, this process can be adapted for other uses. “We can use healthy cells, normal cells, or stem cells to build three dimensional individual biological models for regenerative medicine – skin, bones, even organs,” says Dr. Sun. These models can be used to learn more about certain diseases or for drug testing. “We can build a small micro-organ of liver, which does not have the full function of a liver, but has the function of the metabolism and function for drug testing,” says Dr. Sun. Testing on a printed dummy-organ outside of the body allows doctors to determine drug efficacy and proper dosage non-invasively.
At this point bioprinting is barely in its infancy. But the doctors and scientists who are just getting warmed up with the capabilities of this technology are already working on heart valves, an one day perhaps even complete organs such as a pancreas, kidney, or even heart beginning with our own stem cells. Put that in your tricorder.
Gary Kaye is the creator of Tech50+ (www.tech50plus.com), the leading website covering technology from the Baby Boomer perspective. Kaye has been covering high tech for more than 30 years with outlets including NBC, ABC, CNN and Fox Business. He is a regular contributor to AARP and other websites on issues regarding the nexus of technology, seniors and baby boomers.
