Skolkovo biomed cluster resident 3D Bioprinting Solutions has announced the successful printing of a mouse’s thyroid gland. 3d Bioprinting Solutions is targeting functional printed kidney scheduled for 2018.
If confirmed, it would reportedly be the world’s first synthetic construction of a complete, transplantable living organ.
“This is undoubtedly a breakthrough in the world of regenerative medicine,” said the bioprinter’s developer Vladimir Mironov. “We have successfully demonstrated the possibilities of Russia’s first bioprinter, and we’re continuing our validation work, systematically testing and optimizing our technology for 3D organ bioprinting,” he added.
The coming weeks will see Mironov’s team attempt to transplant the organ – a matter of millimeters thick – into a mouse suffering from hyperthyroidism
Bioprinted kidneys will be of much more importance to the medicine, as thyroid diseases are rarely fatal, while kidney malfunctions kill millions.
While the laboratory’s 3D bioprinter is not the only one in the world, with over a dozen other models existing, the Russian technology is unique as it has capacity to accommodate all known methods and approaches to 3D bioprinting, Mironov told the Skolkovo Community earlier in September.
Russian researchers also plan to create a new magnetic generation of such printers, to be used in space.
At the moment, stem-cells organs are bioprinted with successive layers, because of the gravity. But if cells are put in the weightlessness of space, they can form a desired organ themselves, with the help of a special magnetic field. Mironov says he already reached agreements for such tests to be carried out aboard the International Space Station.
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