Printable Organs (informational)

According to “Organ Donation Statistic” (2018), more than 114,000 people needed an organ transplant in 2017. Due to the shortage of viable organ to be harvested, nearly 22 people die each day waiting for an organ. However, new technology that can use ones’ own stem cells to generate a printable organ might just be the remedy the healthcare industry needs. Although this innovation is new and is still in the groundbreaking phase, scientist and research are hopeful that a printable organ could be feasible.

So what is a printable organ, and how does it work exactly. A printable organ is created by 3D printing technology and designed for organ replacement. A person’s stem cells will be harvested, coaxed into becoming different types of cells, then a bio printer assembles the cells onto a scaffold layer by layer to generate a new organ (Ogunnaike, 2016).. The organ will be placed in an incubator until it ready to transplantation. Thus far skin for burn victims and airway splints for babies with tracheobronchomalacia have been created through 3D printing, and has caused the industry to be optimistic that more organs are to come. This new technology has the potential to change the impact on foreseen inflated medical cost because this technology is much more cost effective than harvesting traditional human organ for transplant. The process involves building solid, three-dimensional objects from a digital model, using additive processes in which successive layers of material are assembled on top of one another to build the desired object (Hendricks, 2016). This way of design is more precise, eliminates error, eliminates waste and extraction cost- all of which drive up the cost.

References

Hendricks, D. (2016). 3D Printing Is Already Changing Health Care. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/03/3d-printing-is-already-changing-health-care

Ogunnaike, T. (2016). Printable Organs Will Put an End to Transplant Lists. Retrieved from https://singularityhub.com/2016/11/04/printable-organs-will-put-an-end-to-transplant-lists/#sm.000010nf4vjeyzeuby82fa59cwhk6

Organ Donation Statistics (2018). Retrieved from [b]https://www.organdonor.gov/statistics-stories/statistics[b].html

 

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