Complex blood vessel nets could be 3D printed for artificial organs

A calculation model that can quickly design a blood vessel network for any 3D printed organ may be one step closer to being transported to artificial liver, kidneys or hearts without the need for a donor.

People with organ failure often require organ transplantation, but Only 10 percent of the global transfer request is met. To meet this need, scientists develop ways for 3D printing organs in the laboratory. However, they require the survival of blood vessel networks and the current experimental methods to design these processes are days or even weeks.

To address this Alison Marsden Stanford University and his colleagues in California have established a calculation model that can design these networks for any mathematical law based on how blood vessels entered the smaller ones in the body.

The model tested by providing a 25 -vessel design for a ring -shaped structure, which is 3D printed from the kidney cells made in just a few minutes.

The team then stepped into the ring using cold gelatin particles before heating to 37 ° C (98.6 ° F), leaving a network of 1 millimeter -wide channels (98.6 ° F), which melts the ship network, gelatin and mimic the blood vessels. Researchers then pumps a liquid containing oxygen and nutrients through channels to simulate normal blood flow.

A week later, there was about 400 times more living cells in the ring than the same ring of the same kidney cells where the team was washed in blood -like fluids.

Marsen says, iz We can keep cells close to ships alive, ”he says. Those who are further away have died, because it is not yet possible to print smaller, higher branches needed to provide nutrients to these areas. The team is investigating ways to deal with it.

“They are definitely pushing the limit of what is possible,” he says Hugues Talbot At the Paris-Saclay University in France. The approach can one day allow scientists to design the ship network for a full -sized organ within hours instead of days or weeks. “Boat [networks] Designed in this way, it can be used to replace or at least complete the organs that can be grown in the laboratory in the future. “

First of all, researchers need to develop ways to press these blood vessel networks into large organs. If everything goes well, he says they hope to test 3D printed organs in pigs in about five years from Mars.