Breakthrough Technique Towards 3D Printing Replacement Organs

Rice University bioengineers have made a big step toward 3D printing replacement organs and tissues, with a new open-source technique for bioprinting tissues that have intricately entangled vascular networks just like the body's natural passageways for blood, air, and other vital fluids. Their proof-of-principle is a hydrogel scale-model of a lung-mimicking air sac. Its airways deliver oxygen to surrounded blood vessels.