02 June 2022
17:29
The American biotech company 3DBio Therapeutics has succeeded as the first ever to implant a 3D-printed body part consisting of living cells.
The medical world has gained a major first: a 20-year-old Mexican woman has become the first patient ever to have a 3D-printed ear implanted from her own cells. The news was announced on Thursday by US biotech company 3DBio Therapeutics, which created the ear.
The woman, Alexa, was born with microtia, a rare condition that left her right ear cup small and abnormally shaped. The researchers managed to print a perfect copy of her left ear from a small ball of cells from her deformed ear. As the ear continues to generate cartilage tissue, it looks and feels like a real ear.
The printing itself didn’t even take ten minutes, but it involved complex preparation. After growing a small amount of tissue into billions of cells, the researchers mixed it with a special bioink based on the body’s own proteins. On which a special 3D printer injected that substance layer by layer into an elongated object with the exact shape of the healthy ear.
The implant is part of a first clinical study involving 11 patients aged 6-25 years, who will be followed up for five years. 3DBio Therapeutics does not want to give away many details about the procedure. It says it will share the results in a medical journal when the study is complete.
In its infancy
‘This is an important breakthrough in the sector’, says Jasper Van Hoorick, the CEO of the Flemish start-up Bio Inx, which makes materials that allow researchers to 3D print human cells. Although more and more companies and start-ups are entering the market, bioprinting is still in its infancy. There is not yet a legal framework and there are also several challenges at the technological level.
It makes sense that the researchers chose an ear. It consists of cartilage and is therefore a relatively simple system.
According to Van Hoorick, very small structures are currently mainly printed in laboratories worldwide, because it is not easy technologically to print large cases with cells. He considers it logical that the first 3D-printed body part from human cells is an ear. “A big problem with tissue printing is getting enough blood flow so cells get nutrients and get rid of their waste,” he says. ‘An ear mainly consists of cartilage, so that is a relatively simple system.’
In time, experts also dream of printing intervertebral discs, noses, menisci and even organs such as livers or kidneys from their own cells. The big advantage is that the body does not think that it is a new organ, so that there is no rejection reaction, as often happens with transplantation of donor organs. It also opens the door for transplants of more complex body parts, which cannot be transplanted yet.
With ever stricter rules about testing on animals, companies are experimenting with printing mini-organs and mini-3D tissues, on which you can test cosmetics and medicines.
But according to Van Hoorick, that is still a thing of the future. “It will certainly take 10 to 15 years to overcome all legal and technological obstacles.” In the shorter term, he sees the market moving towards another application. ‘Now that ever stricter rules are being imposed on animal testing, companies are experimenting with printing mini-organs and mini-3D tissues, on which you can test cosmetics and medicines. This is technologically and legally possible. I think that’s the first market we’ll be tapping into.’
The future looks bright for Alexa. She told The New York Times that she is happy with her new ear. She is looking forward to putting her hair up for the first time in her life. “I think my confidence will improve.”