New perspectives in organ transplants

Currently, there are more than 120,000 people who are waiting for organ transplants only in U.S., and less than
10% of these patients have a chance to be cured because of donor deficiency. Fortunately, in recent few years, new ways
of creating organs had been discovered. This include growing new tissues from patients own cells and threedimensional printing to create more complex organs such as kidney, heart and liver.
The history of transplantation began from the mid of twentieth century: in 1955 kidney was the first organ that
was transplanted. Then, in 1996, synthetic materials such as silicon and tetrafluoroethylene (Teflon) were first used in
2D printing to create entire organs. The main disadvantage of producing organs from the synthetic materials was that
these organs cannot behave as a real human organ. But now, due to developed nanotechnologies, new tissues for
transplantation are made from patients own cells which can be advantageous in many ways:
It takes much less time to create and organ from living cells
The newly created tissue can easily fit to a patients organism as it was generated from his/her own cells
It is safety and painless for patient, since skin cells could be used for this technique
The strategy of creating a tissue by using human cells is explained below:

Cells are taken from the patients organ that need to be transplanted
The cells are grown in culture
The cells are implanted into scaffold (biomaterial, which gives and supports the three-dimensional
structure of the tissue)
Then cells should be trained in order to prepare them function properly in a human body after
transplantation
Finally, the prepared cells is transplanted into patients organism
After new tissue regenerates (few months later) in human body, scaffold degrades
In general, growing cells in a large quantity and making a tissue takes approximately 6-8 weeks.
This technique can be used only for not complex tissues such as muscle or blood vessels. However, most of the
patients who are needed in organ transplantation need entire organs. To solve this issue, 3D printing technique was first
introduced in medicine and it is called as bioprinting.
The strategy of bioprinting is the same as 3D printing in manufacturing and engineering. The organ is printed
layer-by-layer in a bioprinter, but instead of ink, living cells are used. The main steps of bioprinting of organs are given
below:

Step-1: imaging of damaged organs in the human body by using X-rays, computed tomography (CT) or magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI).
Step-2: to make a design of bioprinted tissues and organs. Three different approaches which include biomimicry,
self-assembly and mini-tissues can be used separately of in combination.
Step-3 and step-4: selecting specific biomaterial and cells to create the organ.
Step-5: the organ is printed in the bioprinter. There are three different types of 3D printer which include inkjet,
microextrusion and laser-based. Only one of these types is used to create the specific organ.
Step-6: application step, where the newly created organ is, firstly, tested for its readiness and, then, implanted into
patients body.