US company Techshot plans to send a 3D printer to the International Space Station (ISS) in May to print heart tissue. By doing so, the company hopes to counter the global shortage of donor organs. The company is not the first to experiment with this: Russian 3D Bioprinting Solutions announced late last year that it had printed animal tissue on the ISS.
For years, heart patients have faced a global shortage of donor hearts. Due to the shortage, many patients do not receive a donor organ in time, resulting in an estimated several thousand patients dying every year. Several companies have long been working on 3D printers capable of printing human tissue and even human organs to solve this shortage.
Organs collapse under their own weight
3D printing of tissue and organs is complex and challenging in practice. For example, it proves very difficult to print an organ such as a heart or lung in a laboratory; the organs tend to collapse under their own weight during printing.
Techshot hopes to address this problem by printing organs in space. Because space has no gravity, this force no longer affects the printing process, preventing organs from collapsing under their own weight. "Our ultimate goal is to provide a solution to the organ shortage, which causes an average of 20 people a day to die in the US alone while waiting for an organ transplant," Rich Boling, vice president of TechShot, explained to the BBC.
BioFabrication Facility
The 3D printer developed by Techshot is called a 'BioFabrication Facility' (BFF). This device is roughly the size of a microwave oven and uses 3D printing techniques to print heart tissue using patient stem cells. This heart tissue can then be used to 'repair' the patient's heart.
The BFF is expected to be flown to the ISS via SpaceX mission CRS-18. This mission is scheduled for May 2019. During its first year on the ISS, BFF will mainly perform experiments to test the operation of the printer in space. After this initial testing phase, Techshot will focus on heart tissue printing. "Once our test protocols are completed, we will make the programme accessible to external researchers who want to use our device," Boling said.
After some time, the BFF will be flown back to Earth, where adjustments can be made to optimise the printer's operation. The modified printer will then be sent back to the ISS.
'Deployment of 3D printed organs still a long way off'
Despite the company expecting to make considerable strides in printing human tissue and organs in space, the deployment of such printed organs is still a long way off, according to Techshot. The company foresees that it will take at least another decade before printed organs are legally accepted.
The cost of 3D printed organs in space is expected to be high. For instance, a flight on SpaceX's cheapest rocket to the ISS still costs nearly $60 million per flight. Nevertheless, Boling expects that 3D printing organs in space could also be economically viable. "An organ produced in space from a patient's own stem cells will not require anti-rejection drugs. The lifetime cost of a transplant is therefore expected to be lower for patients who receive an organ manufactured in space," Boling said.
Tissue printed in ISS before
By the way, Techshot is not the only company that wants to use a 3D printer to print tissue on the ISS. In fact, Russian company 3D Bioprinting Solutions, part of INVITRO, has already done so. The company announced in December 2018 that it had successfully printed a thyroid gland and cartilage tissue from a mouse with its Organ.Aut bioprinter. The thyroid and cartilage tissue have since been flown back to Earth and are currently being analysed.
3D Bioprinting Solutions' 3D printer was actually supposed to be flown to the ISS in October 2018. However, the Russian Soyuz rocket carrying the printer crashed due to problems on take-off, losing the printer. Following this, the company produced a new one, which still arrived at the ISS on 3 December.
Author: Wouter Hoeffnagel
Source: BBC
Source: 3D Bioprinting Solutions
Source Photo: Pixabay / skeeze
