Cornell scientists use 3-D printer, living-cell injections to create new ears

[alp227]

WASHINGTON — Printing out body parts? Cornell University researchers showed it’s possible by creating a replacement ear using a 3-D printer and injections of living cells.

The work reported Wednesday is a first step toward one day growing customized new ears for children born with malformed ones, or people who lose one to accident or disease.

It’s part of the hot field of tissue regeneration, trying to regrow all kinds of body parts. Scientists hope using 3-D printing technology might offer a speedier method with more lifelike results.

If it pans out, “this enables us to rapidly customize implants for whoever needs them,” said Cornell biomedical engineer Lawrence Bonassar, who co-authored the research published online in the journal PLoS One.

full: http://www.theithacajournal.com/viewart/20130220/NEWS01/302200090/Cornell-scientists-use-3-D-printer-living-cell-injections-create-new-ears

[undergroundpanther]

1. I wonder if this technology

will be used to help transgendered people.Because Ftm surgery is very primitive and sometimes requires a man lose sensation.I wish these procedures could be used to help transpeople. But nobody seems to think of it. I guess transpeople are too low on the new medical innovation to be used for them too list.Some conservative pig might get upset the technology isn't being used in a jesus approved way.Grrrrr....

[Tien1985]

2. +1

There are so many interesting things going on in science that could be looked at from the perspective of helping treat trans* people. I agree, I'd love for them to try to find out if this could specifically aid ftm identifying people.

[Posteritatis]

3. I'm utterly certain people are thinking of it, since it's definitely a known problem

Prosthetics - or, in this case, newly grown replacement parts - are (relatively) easy on their own, but handling sensation properly is right on the edges of medical science these days, especially with body parts as, ah, specialized as those affected by reassignment surgery.

It's the same reason we've had artificial hearts for awhile but don't have artificial lungs and are really struggling with artificial kidneys - the more complex a part, the more stuff it has to do, the more types of wiring running through it, the harder it is to reproduce.

Stuff like this, or the wholly prosthetic arm being tested later this year that can carry sensation, are definitely steps along the way though. Getting everything to behave properly is a huge, huge, huge challenge, though; if someone made the breakthroughs necessary to allow completely functional reassignment surgeries to become commonplace, they'd be a shoe-in for a Nobel for that alone, never mind the zillions of spinoffs something like that would allow.

[DhhD]

4. How soon before they can inject your cells into a preformed knee or hip?