14 DAY TRIAL // The liver is one of the most resilient organs of the human body, mostly because it can regenerate. It also happens to be the one easiest to replicate through 3D printing technology. Or at least its tissue is.
Creating 3D printed organs, or parts of organs, is what Organovo is all about, a company based in SanDiego, California.
In fact, the company has been working on artificial livers very intensely for quite a few months. Now, it can proudly say it has reached one of its biggest milestones.
It isn't ready to say it can make livers that can actually be implanted in people. But then again, that's not what it's been building towards for the short term.
Instead, it has been 3D printing liver tissue for the purposes of drug testing. This latest update is to tell you that results are very promising.
You may or may not have heard about drugs that were deemed safe in pre-clinical studies and in vitro tests but caused liver damage during human trials.
Organovo has been collaborating with a major pharmaceutical company that had a problem of this kind with a certain medicine a while back. The Organovo 3D printed liver immediately detected the toxicity.
Because of that, it's safe to assume that the liver tissue will be used in drug tests a lot from now on, sparing patients from unneeded suffering and saving drug companies a lot of money.