Researchers In Kentucky Are Trying To 3D Print A Working Human Heart Out Of Fat Cells
Doctors and researchers at the University of Louisville are working on 3D printing a functioning human heart out of a patient's own fat cells, reports the AP.
That might sound like a complex and intractable approach, but Dr. Stuart Williams of the university's "Bioficial Heart Program" says it's much easier than you might think: "The heart is one of the easiest - if not the easiest - tissues and organs to print because it's made up of so few cells that have really only one major function, and that is to contract, to beat."
It's especially important that the heart is made out of a patient's own cells because this helps prevent the patient's body from rejecting it.
Williams says that the most difficult part of this process will be to get the heart's components to work together in concert to move blood throughout the body.
Here's a picture from the manufacturing process, in which a heart is being built layer by layer from bottom to top. The AP's full video report is below that.
Screenshot
- US buys 81 Soviet-era combat aircraft from Russia's ally costing on average less than $20,000 each, report says
- 2 states where home prices are falling because there are too many houses and not enough buyers
- A couple accidentally shipped their cat in an Amazon return package. It arrived safely 6 days later, hundreds of miles away.
- India Inc marks slowest quarterly revenue growth in January-March 2024: Crisil
- Nothing Phone (2a) India-exclusive Blue Edition launched starting at ₹19,999
- SC refuses to plea seeking postponement of CA exams scheduled in May
- 10 exciting weekend getaways from Delhi within 300 km in 2024
- Foreign tourist arrivals in India will cross pre-pandemic level in 2024