December 2019 – Article 1:
In the 1939 “The Wizard of Oz” classic, Scarecrow wanted a brain and Tinman wanted a heart.
The real world is no less needy. Even though 30,000 transplants are performed annually in the U.S., 20 people die every day while waiting for an organ. Additionally, there are currently an estimated 113,000 people on waiting lists.
Today scientists in the United States and around the world are feverishly working to meet the demand by developing 3D-printed organs, eliminating the need for the current practice of relying on donors, which is often terribly abused by unscrupulous organ harvesters.
For example, researchers at Melbourne’s Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Australia have successfully printed “mini brains,” known as “cerebral organoids.”
While raising obvious ethical concerns about how the process might ultimately affect the Personhood of recipients, the development could one day help cure childhood epilepsy, Alzheimer’s disease, and brain cancer.
The focus to date is not producing a replaceable brain, but creating the living functional equivalent of ones that mimic the behavior of the brains of children with rare, debilitating forms of epilepsy.
“Some of these kids can’t speak, are not mobile, they sit in a cot, they have 20 seizures a day and they die when they’re 12,” explained Steven Petrou, Florey Institute Director.
Researchers take skin cells from the children, turn them into pluripotent stem cells and direct them to become neurons.
Placed in a special watery matrix, the tiny slivers of 3D-printed cells are then connected to electrodes. When viewed under a microscope, researchers can see them “firing” in the same way brain cells work.
Petrou says he is on the verge of announcing a clinical trial of a gene therapy to treat one variant of epilepsy.
Closer to Printing a Human Heart
While these developments are promising, the researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburg claim they have developed a new technique that brings them a step closer to being able to print a full-sized, adult human heart.
The process, known as “Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels (FRESH),” has allowed the researchers to overcome many of the challenges associated with existing 3D printing methods, and to achieve unprecedented resolution using soft and living materials.
Each of the organs in the human body, such as the heart, is built from specialized cells that are held together by a biological scaffold called the “extracellular matrix (ECM).” Until now, it has not been possible to rebuild this complex ECM using traditional bio fabrication methods.
“What we’ve shown is that we can print pieces of the heart out of cells and collagen into parts that truly function, like a heart valve or a small beating ventricle,” explained Adam Feinberg, a professor of biomedical engineering (BME) and materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon.
“By using MRI data of a human heart, we were able to accurately reproduce patient-specific anatomical structures and 3D bio print collagen and human heart cells,” he added.
Collagen is an extremely desirable biomaterial to use in 3D printing because it makes up literally every single tissue in the body.
The FRESH bio printing method allows collagen to be deposited layer-by-layer within a support bath of gel, giving the collagen the opportunity to solidify in place before being removed.
The method is encouraging because it allows collagen scaffolds to be printed at the actual scale of large human organs.
In a related development, Israeli scientists at Tel Aviv University recently presented a prototype of a miniature heart, which they claim is the first heart created with a 3D printer using human tissue.
They proclaim it’s the first time anyone, anywhere has successfully printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers.
More Research and Studies Needed
“It is important to understand that there are many years of research yet to be done, but there should still be excitement that we’re making real progress towards engineering functional human tissues and organs,” Feinberg added.
Creating hearts, kidneys, livers, or other vital organs can be welcomed by pro-life supporters. But when it comes to our minds, there is a serious risk of altering our relationship with God.
Our Personhood can’t be replicated by a printing machine on steroids.
Sources: smh.com.au; sciencedaily.com; straitstimes.com.
By Wayne DuBois
Georgia Right to Life
Media Relations Advisor