Reimagining Surgery with 3D Bioprinting

A picture of a kidney with vascular channels (Wyss Institute at Harvard University)

 Patients and doctors alike share the same view on surgery: It's terrifying. Whether you are a patient laying on the operating table, or the experienced surgeon, who is feeling the pressure of having the life of someone in their hands, both sides share a sense of fear. However– a new technology– 3D bioprinting offers some aid to this fear. Although the idea of 3D bioprinting organs has been around for a long time, bioprinting has recently become close to its full functionality and is becoming crucial in the daily lives of individuals in research and medicine, reducing the medical uncertainty of a human’s body systems and how they function leading to the evolution of surgery as we know it. 

What is Bioprinting?

3D bioprinting is a “computer-aided design” that depicts living cells, biomaterials and biochemicals to create experimental online images that show the  functionality of specific human tissues and organs. These designs are very useful in medical research and for a variety of studies. According to medical professionals, Giovanna Richi, Filippo Gibelli, and Ascanio Sirignano, this technology is hoped to be used to test drugs and their effects, mock diseases and show potential causes and treatments all leading to the topic and idea of organ transplants and their processes. 3D bioprinting first became an idea when Charles Hull’s invention of stereolithography, a form of 3D printing technology, arose in 1983 causing a spike in interest for creating alterable three-dimensional computer-aided organs for the evolution in medicine. According to Cina Coren, an author who published an article on 3D bioprinting on EBSCO, the first successful printing was of a human bladder in 1999.  The Role of Bioprinting in Modern Medicine

The progression of 3D Bioprinting from the year 1983 to now, has greatly impacted the surgical world by transforming the mystery of the human body to an alterable model helping surgeons model and plan out their path before the initial cut. Recently, according to the NLM database article, “Cardiovascular disease is one of the main causes of death around the world.” Cardiovascular diseases typically require heart surgeries, allowing for 3D bioprinting technology to come in and aid the planning of the surgery by providing a simulation, or a template for a simulation, to surgeons who can then use 3D heart models to find out all the potential mishaps that are more likely to happen in the surgical procedure. Many other organs have been depicted in the same way, typically for surgeries, which allows for a higher chance of successful operations.

 3D bioprinting is still being edited to add more functions, simulations, and details, but  this technology has revolutionized surgery, ensuring safety and causing patients to have more faith in difficult operations. In the end, bioprinting was created for the benefit of mankind and is a huge leap forward in the realm of medicine and will continue to evolve.

References

Lewis, J., & Chen, C. (2019, February 22). 3D Bioprinting of Living Tissues. Wyss Institute. https://wyss.harvard.edu/technology/3d-bioprinting/ 

Ricci, G., Gibelli, F., & Sirignano, A. (2023). Three-Dimensional Bioprinting of Human Organs and Tissues: Bioethical and Medico-Legal Implications Examined through a Scoping Review. Bioengineering, 10(9), 1052. https://doi.org/10.3390/bioengineering10091052 

Song, D., Xu, Y., Liu, S., Wen, L., & Wang, X. (2021). Progress of 3D Bioprinting in Organ Manufacturing. Polymers, 13(18), 3178. https://doi.org/10.3390/polym13183178 

3D Bioprinting | EBSCO. (2024). EBSCO Information Services, Inc. | Www.ebsco.com. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/engineering/3d-bioprinting

‌