Could 3D Bioprinting Bring Man Immortality?

3D printing machines have been around for awhile, but in the last 5 years, major medical advances have been made in Bioprinting technology. So many in fact, that it might be reasonable to wonder if these advances could one day make man "immortal". Just recently, scientists in Madrid have come up with a 3D bioprinter that can produce fully functional human skin.

This new human skin is one of the first living human organs created using bioprinting to be introduced to the marketplace. It replicates the natural structure of the skin, with a first external layer, the epidermis with its stratum corneum, which acts as protection against the external environment, together with another thicker, deeper layer, the dermis. This last layer consists of fibroblasts that produce collagen, the protein that gives elasticity and mechanical strength to the skin.

www.sciencedaily.com...

This discovery is really important, especially to burn patients, because the artificial skin is derived from the patient's own tissue, which would prevent rejection from the patient's body.

In 2013, scientists discovered a way to manufacture a human ear using 3D printing, that resembled and worked like the real thing. Scientists extract stem cells from a patients fat tissue, which is mixed with a "hydro" gel. This mixture is then placed into printing molds and incubated to produce steroids, which are the building blocks to 3D organ printing. Organ rejection could be a thing of the past, since the 3D printed organ was made from the patient's own stem cells.


Take a look at what was done in April of 2016...remarkable!

Also in late 2013, scientists discovered how to 3D bioprint a human kidney for the first time.

these adorable mini kidneys are able to function in exactly the same ways as their real, human-bred counterpart—they can break down toxins, metabolize, and secrete fluid. All of this is fantastic news for the millions of patients in need of organ transplants every yea—a small fraction of which actually receive the life-giving surgery. And though it may still be a few years before we start seeing this method being used in actual hospitals, judging by the the success of the fun-sized version, we're well on our way to printing off brand new organs at moment's notice.

gizmodo.com...

Sure enough, the 3D bioprinting technology for producing a human kidney improved in 2015.

Then, in January 2016, a 3 year old became the first person to have an adult kidney transplant using 3D printing technology.

"It is the first time in the world that 3D printing has been used to aid kidney transplant surgery involving an adult donor and a child recipient."

www.telegraph.co.uk...

Also in early 2016, a Vanderbilt University nephrologist was able to bioprint an implantable artificial kidney, with microchip filters and living kidney cells.


In late 2015, Carnegie Mellon researchers, using a 3D printer, were able to manufacture body parts and human organs.

Printing a series of artery trees using this technique was perhaps the most substantial achievement by the team, who have produced complex biological structures with an unprecedented degree of precision. The team’s next step is to inject heart cells into these 3D printed biological tissue structures, essentially filling in the printed “scaffolding” with its biological “concrete”. This research has obvious implications for medical science. Let’s just take one example: the heart. Human heart tissue has lost its ability to repair or regenerate itself once it is damaged. So if a heart needs to be operated on, it often requires new heart tissue. This isn’t always readily available, and the agonizing wait for a heart transplant from a donor often ends in tragedy. This waiting list could be significantly reduced by using 3D bioprinting: this FRESH technique could produce pieces of bespoke heart tissue for each specific case of heart damage.

www.iflscience.com...


Then, in early 2016, scientists announced that it successfully transplanted a 3D printed organ in an animal and got it to work. This was an important step, because scientists had a difficult time keeping 3D printed tissue alive.

For years scientists have succeeded at 3D printing “living” tissue, but that tissue has been too weak, too unstable and too small to implant into humans or animals. Getting the tissue to stay alive long enough to integrate with the body and fuse with its blood supply has been next to impossible. Because of those hurdles, some scientists are skeptical that printing organs for the human body will ever become more than science fiction. But now researchers at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine report they kept a baby-sized ear alive on a mouse for two months. And the ear didn’t just survive—it formed new cartilage tissue and blood vessels, signs of a successful integration with the mouse’s body.

“With further development,” Atala said in a statement, “this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation.”

fusion.net...

It's very conceivable that by the end of this decade, we will be able to transplant a 3D bioprinted heart into a patient. We've already implanted bioprinted bladders and kidneys. Now we have the technology to bioprint "living" human skin onto a burn patient to aid in their healing.

So what of our future? Could we 3D bioprint a younger clone of ourselves, using our stem cells and then transplant our brain into it? Immortality?

a reply to: shawmanfromny

That would be like living in hell on a daily basis. I can't see myself being here forever, that would suck. Pig Men Hybrids running around, Hilary clones, No Thankyou.

a reply to: JesusXst

Thank you,

Not to mention, mainly people with wealth and power want to live forever, I'm pretty sure that would lead to some very one sided operation and evolution of humanity.

So the Republic from Starwars basically...

Yeah that's pretty scary, i'm good with 80 years and a break.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Regrowing body parts like livers, kidneys,ears that sort of thing is fine, but It would fall into some psycho's lap eventually who would pervert it.

Good info and lay out though

I do not want to be immortal in the physical. We are all on our journey home and it is nothing like this "life".

a reply to: Tranceopticalinclined

Even 80 yrs is too long for me lol

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: JesusXst

Thank you,

Not to mention, mainly people with wealth and power want to live forever, I'm pretty sure that would lead to some very one sided operation and evolution of humanity.

Man, the operation... the laws that would have to be created to prevent overpopulation. There would be a birthing tax and fees associated with having a child. You'd have to wait until someone decides they are done living so a spot can open up for a new life.

The frailty of life would be whittled down to death by violence from another. Or perhaps we even surpass that. Keeping our 3D printed backup brains like an external hard drive ready to be implanted into a new body should your old brain be destroyed. But what am I thinking, that's outdated tech. Obviously our minds would be backed up into the iCloud. Fall off a cliff? No problem, here's your new iBody with a brain updated to your last restore point.

Long story short, we'll be biological computers before too long.

/rambling

a reply to: shawmanfromny

Such technologies could certainly prolong life via the replacement of faulty body parts.

But unless we can also manage to bio-print the Human brain, and work out a way to transfer our consciousness from one brain to another, us dear meat sacks are always going to have a shelf life of around a few hundred years.

Let me know when they get the actual west world up and running...I want a ticket and one or twelve of those bar maids ! (joke)

Actually... Kids in accidents (or anyone else with severe disfigurements) can certainly benefit from this applied science.. Pretty tough on a kid going to school that lost an ear or is deformed due to other kids making cruel gestures and comments..

I have known two people who had to have one side of their jaw removed due to cancer.. They were so embarrassed to be seen in public they basically shut themselves off from the rest of the world.. Very sad but they were very conscience of people looking

I can see many benefits coming from this if they will just get it out and affordable for the masses.

a reply to: shawmanfromny

I believe that while people will be less likely to die from diseases of the organs or the tissues that can be replaced, if this bioprinting keeps moving on leaps and bounds, I doubt functional immortality is going to result. Strands of genetic information uncoiling/collapsing is a matter which cannot be effected by having new livers, kidneys, and so on.

a reply to: TrueBrit

If Rockefeller has indeed had all those heart transplants one has to wonder as to how modern medical science managed to allow his frail decrepit body to endure such repeated trauma and strain on the immune system given his extremely advanced age?

God knows what kind of cocktail of anti rejection drugs he must be on?

originally posted by: TrueBrit
Rockefeller... the Galactic Emperor... he has apparently had something like seven transplants, heart I think... I could be mistaken about the organ, but the number is firm in my mind.

That hoax is from World News Daily Report. No one has had that many heart transplants.

a reply to: TrueBrit

It's just that i watched my brother come through a heart transplant and witnessed the trauma and strain associated with such a procedure, and he was only in his mid twenty's at the time.

Granted "they" can work wonders, especially so given the unlimited resources and medical healthcare that i imagine would be at Rockefeller's disposal, but end of the day there is only so much a human body can endure before it fails and shuts down.

Who knows what "They" are really capable of, but like you said its not like the general population will ever be afforded such luxurious medical attention.

I am all for this technology. However it would not surprise me to see conflict between the religiously insane who will claim this is 'playing God' versus the people who think this is a natural progression in human growth.

a reply to: andy06shake

My sincerest apologies andy06shake. I appear to have been misled!

a reply to: TrueBrit

No bother buddy, i read something that also allured to Rockefeller having such numerous procedures. On this occasion however it does appear to be exaggerated hyperbole.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I can never understand these religious types mentality given the fact that there God supposedly bestowed upon Man the gift of freewill.

Or on the other side of the equation we have Gods apparent predestination(Plan) at play hence anything we do must be according to plan also.

There just never happy really.

If humanity can do a thing it generally follows that it will do that thing, after all we simply do not invent tools that we do not use.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I'm pretty sure Soros has.

And even if he hasn't he still has.

originally posted by: andy06shake
I can never understand these religious types mentality given the fact that there God supposedly bestowed upon Man the gift of freewill.

I completely agree with you, heretic.