'Organ printing' = human organs out of a printer

The man behind the idea to print human organs is Dr. Gabor Forgacs. Forgacs is scientist at the University of Missouri where is involved in the so called 'regenerative medicine'. something which isn't new for those who read Extend Limits on a daily basis. We talked about regenerative medicine earlier on this weblog. But besides his scientific work Forgacs is also actively involved in his organisation Organovo. This organisation's main objective is to make it possible to print human organs in the future.

Organovo is a seed-stage regenerative medicine company that applies proprietary organ printing technology to solve critical problems in transplant medicine, cardiovascular medicine, tissue repair, and medical research

Regenerative medicine is one of the most appealing future technologies the world knows today. This is aslo shown in the concept Dr. Gabor Forgacs works on. Het developed a 'ink' which consists of thousands human cells. The cells are printed on organic biopaper to make human organs. By printing them on this paper and bring them into development in natural circumstance human organs can be made. It is all still in development but the future of this look promising. This will have a huge impact in the live expectancy of humans, According to Dr. Gabor Forgacs the youngsters of today will actually experience the printing of their organs.

You give us your cells: we grow them, we print them, the structure forms and we are ready to go. I am pretty sure that full organs will be on the market. These organs may not look like our organs but they will function just like the real thing.

Mijn voorspelling is dat deze technologie binnen 20 jaar gemeengoed is in de medische wereld. Wat denken jullie? The clip is from Discovery.