Printing Living Organs
October 9, 2012 | Terry Sharrer
One of the problems in growing organs in tissue culture is creating the vascularization that supports cells deep in the tissue. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, however, have an interesting strategy (be sure to see their videos) to solve the problem by 3-D sugar lattices and then saturating the structure with a gel containing living cells. Once the structure is complete, the sugar is dissolved, leaving channels that act as capillaries for nutrient flow. MORE
Image Credit: University of Pennsylvania and Smart Planet