Don't worry, no one will try to stick it in you

Nov 21, 2014 12:40 GMT  ·  By

Some may have thought that 3D printing technology would reach the point where it can create working electronics before it gets to be used in organs or even living tissue, but that's not the case. Organovo recently proved as much.

Earlier this week, Organovo announced the commercial availability of 3D printed liver tissue, the one that we first learned about a few months ago.

This effectively makes 3D bioprinting the most advanced branch of 3D printing technology, not counting the normal range of FDM, SLA and SLS additive manufacturing machines.

3D printed livers passed important toxicology tests back in August, and now Organovo is ready to provide them to various clients from the medical sector.

The nature of the exVive3D Human Liver Tissue

"The durability and functionality of the 3D liver product enable the assessment of the effects of low dose or repeated dosing regimens across a spectrum of biochemical, molecular, and histologic end points," says the company.

The artificial liver is basically intended to allow pharmaceutical companies and other medical research bodies to test drugs for toxicity.

In addition to that, the exVive3D human liver tissue can help establish the absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion parameters of medicine, or ADME for short.

In a sense, we can't really call the livers artificial, or at least not synthetic, because they are made of real human liver cells. They just aren't in the shape of lab-grown goo, but imitate the real setup inside a liver.

Medicine makers will be able to use the tissue to study both short-term and long-term effects of their drugs.

How the exVive3D human liver tissue is made

Organovo uses a 3D bioprinter to dispense bio-ink building blocks and grow a liver from it, layer by layer. With three-dimensionality achieved without depending on biomaterial or scaffold components, the results are more accurate since the conditions of native tissues are more closely mirrored.

Creation is reproducible and automatic, with consistent results. The tissue is also built with multiple cell types, instead of isolating the liver cells and suturing them as monolayers on sterile plastic.

Organovo is now ready to provide clients with contractual services, whereby they will use their testing facility to test the drugs sent over by pharmaceutical entities. It's essential for the experiments to be conducted in-house, since the company needs to control the process, printing, testing and data curating, otherwise the liver samples won't turn out right.

Organovo 3D printed liver (5 Images)

3D printed liver
3D versus 2D tissueCell culture during a drug test
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