Scientist turns to inkjet printer for a new heart

ONE day we may be able to "print out" new human hearts using simple inkjet technology, according to a scientist who has already started printing cells.

Professor Makoto Nakamura has begun working on a printer that could jet out thousands of cells per second — rather than ink droplets — and to build them up into a three-dimensional organ.
"It would be like building a huge skyscraper on a micro level using different kinds of cells and other materials instead of steel beams, concrete and glass," he said. "Ultimately I hope to make a heart," said Prof Nakamura, from the graduate school of science and technology for
research at the state-run University of Toyama.

While he says it would take him some 20 years to develop a heart, the feat could pave the way to mass produce "good hearts" for patients waiting for transplants. A heart made of cells originating from the patient could eliminate fears that the body would reject it.
In the emerging field of organ printing, Prof Nakamura bills his work as the world's finest printed 3D structure with living cells. The technology works a bit like dealing with sliced fruit: an organ is cut horizontally, allowing researchers to see an array of cells on the surface. If a printer drops cells one by one into the right spots and repeats the process for
many layers, it creates a 3D organ. Much like a printer chooses different colours, the machine can position different types of cells to drop.

Prof Nakamura has already succeeded in building a tube with living cells as narrow as narrow as human hair. The tubes are made by a 3D inkjet bioprinter that Prof Nakamura's team developed over the past three years. The printer can adjust where to drop cells in the order of one-thousandth of a millimetre and produce a tube at a speed of three centimetres per two minutes.