bio printer

[ostrich160]

is it possible to use (organovo or any companies) bioprinter to print
living organisms that are visible to the naked eye (that doesn't mean
it has a brain and moves around and everything, just be alive)?

thanks again
tom

[Cathal Garvey]

Unfortunately, not yet. Those printers are early stage technology, just enough to print blood vessels and bladders. A full organism, even a simple one, is beyond their capacity at present.

That said, all living organisms have their own "bioprinters" installed already, so it's pretty easy to make copies! :)

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[ostrich160]

yeh but aren't bladders technically living? also, do you get some
special software to design your organism on?

On Mar 2, 6:35 pm, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Unfortunately, not yet. Those printers are early stage technology, just
> enough to print blood vessels and bladders. A full organism, even a simple
> one, is beyond their capacity at present.
>
> That said, all living organisms have their own "bioprinters" installed
> already, so it's pretty easy to make copies! :)
>

[Cathal Garvey]

Oh, not a chance. We're simply not that far along yet. Movie-style body-printing is years and years away.

The "printer" works by layering living cells along with a matrix of some kind together, starting at the bottom and working up (sort of like a Makerbot). The cells it's layering do all the hard work of lacing themselves together; by using the right kind of cell, which is capable of both knitting to its neighbours and forming a stable structure, you can "print" an organ.

The problem is, very few cells will do that for you, or they won't do it correctly if they do, or they'll only make an incomplete organ. For example, during the development of a baby's heart, the muscle forms first (and it's a special form of muscle, but we could still probably do it soon), but it tends to flutter randomly for a few weeks and have an odd rhythm until the pacemaker forms; a network of perfectly timed nerves that fire in a special pattern and make the heart beat. We can print the muscle, but we aren't very good at getting nerves to grow, so we can't print a heart ready-for-transplant yet. I gather someone printed a heart that "started beating" some time ago, but I believe that their "beating" is what's technically called "fibrillation", the fluttering that heart muscle without a pacemaker will do on its own, or that the heart starts to do when someone gets a heart attack.

We'll get printing someday, but right now it's really simple stuff. The best way to make a new organism is to breed one.

[ostrich160]

I wouldn't want to breed an animal because it takes the fun out of it
and I find it a bit cruel.
about the creature printing, so your saying the problem is it wouldn't
come out right, so if I tried to make a heart it would come out living
but not working. Well I like that, it gives me the surprise of not
knowing what exactly my creature will look like, but mainly, how it
will function. And its not cruel because it doesnt have a brain so it
doesnt feel abused or that is has a disability. With the right
marketing, you could sell it as a pet, everyone you buy is
different!

On Mar 2, 6:55 pm, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, not a chance. We're simply not that far along yet. Movie-style
> body-printing is years and years away.
>
> The "printer" works by layering living cells along with a matrix of some
> kind together, starting at the bottom and working up (sort of like a
> Makerbot). The cells it's layering do all the hard work of lacing themselves
> together; by using the right kind of cell, which is capable of both knitting
> to its neighbours and forming a stable structure, you can "print" an organ.
>
> The problem is, very few cells will do that for you, or they won't do it
> correctly if they do, or they'll only make an incomplete organ. For example,
> during the development of a baby's heart, the muscle forms first (and it's a
> special form of muscle, but we could still probably do it soon), but it
> tends to flutter randomly for a few weeks and have an odd rhythm until the
> pacemaker forms; a network of perfectly timed nerves that fire in a special
> pattern and make the heart beat. We can print the muscle, but we aren't very
> good at getting nerves to grow, so we can't print a heart
> ready-for-transplant yet. I gather someone printed a heart that "started
> beating" some time ago, but I believe that their "beating" is what's
> technically called "fibrillation", the fluttering that heart muscle without
> a pacemaker will do on its own, or that the heart starts to do when someone
> gets a heart attack.
>
> We'll get printing someday, but right now it's really simple stuff. The best
> way to make a new organism is to breed one.
>

[Cathal Garvey]

Hm.. I'm not sure I'd say it isn't cruel just because it doesn't have a brain. Yes with a bladder, I'd agree. But we humans overemphasize the brain as the be-all-end-all of life.

If you pull the legs off a dog or a mouse, that's generally agreed on to be cruel. Doing that to an insect, most people would logically agree is also cruel. But people seem to reckon it's OK if it doesn't have a brain, so doing that to, say, a hydra wouldn't be cruel.

I'm not saying "have mercy on the Hydras", but when someone is in a vegetative state they effectively have no brain. You can do anything you like to them and it doesn't register pain or otherwise cause obvious discomfort. But some people wake up from those states so we see them as alive, despite the effective lack of a brain. So, were they alive or not?

I'd also disagree that it's less cruel to print life from an unreliable machine than it is to breed life. Kennel clubs for dogs sure do encourage cruelty, but intelligent breeding that focuses on robust and healthy animals is a whole different affair. If you're being careful you ensure that all animals are born healthy and life happy lives; how else can you be sure there's not some mental issue there masked by the animal's response to cruelty?

On the other hand, printing from a machine that can't do the job right just makes deformed life, a lot. In fact, your odds of having a healthy and happy organism out of a dodgy printer are so low that it'll practically never happen by chance alone; life is exquisitely complicated. That's why it takes 9 months to get a person ready for living outside a womb; building a healthy body is difficult and time-consuming. Not only would dodgy-printer-pets be deformed, they'd be unlikely to survive for long at all, perhaps minutes, due to failure of their circulatory systems.

So, I'm going to tentatively predict that we won't see any "pet printers" until organ become so advanced and reliable that A) They can print more than a bladder and B) The odds of getting a deformed animal are as low or lower than traditional breeding. And that's really the way it should be.

[ostrich160]

The real problem for me with breeding is remember I'm only 14. It
would be a lot easier to save up for a printer than say 'mum, I need a
female tiger, a male elephant, and large breeding enclosures'. again,
as long as it feels no discomfort or pain I like it deformed, even if
its just a blob of living putty. And its good if it doesnt survive
long, less of a long time commitment to take care of, maximum a few
days so I can show my friends. All I'm basically saying is that if we
can create life then surely we can create it but for a different
purpose using all the same stuff. Like using a door stop except for a
fake bit of cheese (odd example).

[JonathanCline]

Depends on your definition of 'naked eye'. For example, you could
spray pigmented/glowing bacteria as graffiti, which eventually grow
and create a portrait. Or using a larger liquid handling device you
might be able to spray plant cells onto a substrate which then grow
into moss, etc. Organisms, no. A single organ, yes: can be
printed,
that's the current limit of today's technology as far as I've seen.
Obviously, pick something harmless.

"Ink jet printer spray" of bacteria has previously been discussed on
this
group so check the archives.

As for 'has a brain .. and everything' -- even nematodes have neurons.
Tiny, and has a brain. Hm, maybe someone will correct this as an
improper use of "brain". I'm an engineer not a biologist.


## Jonathan Cline
## jcl...@ieee.org
## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223
########################

[General Oya]

http://www.wfubmc.edu/News-Releases/2010/Researchers_Engineer_Miniature_Human_Livers_in_the_Lab.htm

With this they've done most major organs save the brain.

I'd suggest you check out cell culture and tissue engineering, as once you have a working bio-printer, you'll still need to fill your inkjet wells with viable cells. Even soft machines with muscular tissue will require knowledge of how to grow your substrates and avoid contamination.

Ryan

[Lucas]

Not quite what you're asking for, but reading this reminded me of my
summer project: http://2010.igem.org/Team:Caltech

We wanted to print bioplastic (PHB) in 3D. Didn't quite make it, but
food for thought perhaps.

Lucas

On Mar 2, 10:12 am, ostrich160 <tom.sprin...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

[Giovanni Lostumbo]

"have an odd rhythm until the pacemaker forms; a network of perfectly
timed nerves that fire in a special pattern and make the heart beat."

I <3 cardiomyocytes. :) There is an interesting experiment that shows
that when cardiomyocytes are separated in a cell culture dish, they
lose synchrony, and re sync later when they are in proximity for cell
signalling- something like that.

On Mar 2, 12:55 pm, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh, not a chance. We're simply not that far along yet. Movie-style
> body-printing is years and years away.
>
> The "printer" works by layering living cells along with a matrix of some
> kind together, starting at the bottom and working up (sort of like a
> Makerbot). The cells it's layering do all the hard work of lacing themselves
> together; by using the right kind of cell, which is capable of both knitting
> to its neighbours and forming a stable structure, you can "print" an organ.
>
> The problem is, very few cells will do that for you, or they won't do it
> correctly if they do, or they'll only make an incomplete organ. For example,
> during the development of a baby's heart, the muscle forms first (and it's a
> special form of muscle, but we could still probably do it soon), but it
> tends to flutter randomly for a few weeks and have an odd rhythm until the
> pacemaker forms; a network of perfectly timed nerves that fire in a special
> pattern and make the heart beat. We can print the muscle, but we aren't very
> good at getting nerves to grow, so we can't print a heart
> ready-for-transplant yet. I gather someone printed a heart that "started
> beating" some time ago, but I believe that their "beating" is what's
> technically called "fibrillation", the fluttering that heart muscle without
> a pacemaker will do on its own, or that the heart starts to do when someone
> gets a heart attack.
>
> We'll get printing someday, but right now it's really simple stuff. The best
> way to make a new organism is to breed one.
>

[Giovanni Lostumbo]

Lucas, that's a cool project. Reminds me of:
http://blog.reprap.org/2009/11/bugs-brew-pla-direct.html
It's something I had in mind towards printing organic batteries using
polypyrrole via bacterial production and harvest then layering the
"gel" using a RepRap printer.

https://groups.google.com/group/diybio/browse_frm/thread/86aa3924595856df?tvc=1&q=reprap#

[Patrik]

Anthony Atala from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
just did a nice talk at TED this afternoon, in which he showed a 3D
printed kidney, using a modified inkjet printer to lay down
scaffolding material and renal cells. Not clear if this is a fully
functioning organ yet though.

His talk isn't available online yet, but here's an older TED talk by
him:

http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_growing_organs_engineering_tissue.html


On Mar 3, 4:30 pm, Giovanni Lostumbo <giovanni.lostu...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Lucas, that's a cool project. Reminds me of:http://blog.reprap.org/2009/11/bugs-brew-pla-direct.html
> It's something I had in mind towards printing organic batteries using
> polypyrrole via bacterial production and harvest then layering the
> "gel" using a RepRap printer.
>

> https://groups.google.com/group/diybio/browse_frm/thread/86aa39245958...

[Forrest Flanagan]

I think what he means is he wants a meat-automaton. A robot with some biological components like a microbial fuel cell might be possible, but by no means self-aware.

[William Heath]

Hi Tom,

I gave you the link to the video of a lab that actually printed a living heart that beats using an hp ink jet printer that was slightly modified to print on a platform that adjusted its height down slightly for each layer.  Did you see it?  I want to assure you that you can do this project!  It is actually not even that hard as you can order the bio-paper/scaffolding gel that goes in one of the ink wells of the cartridge and the living hearts that go in the other well.  Did you see the links I gave you to order those cells?  The rest is just a little bit of programming which I would be happy to help with if you want.  Once you print the heart you put it in a CO2 incubator and you will have a living/beating heart in 1 day!  I desperately want to do this project and tried to do it but had too much going on.  I hope you will do this project, it is crazy fun :>

-Tim

P.S.

You may want to borrow from the makerbot http://www.makerbot.com/ if you run into problems with modifying an inkjet printer.  Modifying the makerbot to be a bio printer would be trivial in my opinion.  The makerbot is entirely opensource as well.  You can get all the parts and instructions on how to create makerbot for free. 

[Andrew Barney]

I agree that this is a fascinating area to look into. Especially in
the DIY realm. Yeah, I saw a video a couple years ago where it was
exactly a common HP printer that was slightly modified. They were able
to print out a tiny two-chambered heart. Technically it wouldn't be
able to do anything useful, but i would consider it alive and working
to some extent. And it did seem to beat.

At this point i don't believe anyone has any special software that
allows you to design an organism, but someday soon that may be a very
different story. The software needed to get the printer to print
properly shouldn't be that hard or different from standard CNC
machines.

Here's the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es9_7KuD9Io

[JonathanCline]

On Mar 7, 1:07 pm, Andrew Barney <keen...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree that this is a fascinating area to look into. Especially in
> the DIY realm. Yeah, I saw a video a couple years ago where it was
> exactly a common HP printer that was slightly modified.

I found in related papers that the particle stream from inkjet
printer heads is nearly vertical. That means the distance from the
target (the platform) is not critical. In fact, depending on the
height
of the features, the platform might not need to move at all. The
printer
head's droplets are OK to at least 4.0mm away from the target.
Presuming the head moves around in order to form structures so the
previous target dries (or adheres, or whatever) then it might be OK
to
create ~3mm high structures without a vertically moving platform.
That's pretty good for a start.
The above is based on conjecture from published research.

[Dakota Hamill]

Here is one of the Doctors who was in the Wired video, but at TED

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RMx31GnNXY&feature=feedu

[William Heath]

Hi Jonathan,

The question I have is if the platform does not move down, would you just add more water/solution between layered prints?  Do you feel the cells would not move erratically as they went down to the hydrogel in semi-deep/deep solution?  I hope your right!

-Tim

--

[Nathan McCorkle]

On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 4:54 PM, William Heath <wgh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> The question I have is if the platform does not move down, would you just
> add more water/solution between layered prints?  Do you feel the cells would
> not move erratically as they went down to the hydrogel in semi-deep/deep
> solution?  I hope your right!

I think you would want to print above any water line, potentially
washing between layers with some sort of protein/ECM glue/protein
ligating enzyme.

--
Nathan McCorkle
Rochester Institute of Technology
College of Science, Biotechnology/Bioinformatics

[General Oya]

So are they printing just undifferentiated myoblasts only, or are the wells filled with endothielial, nerve(purkinje) cells and smooth cardiac myocetes? I've heard that their is washable matrix seeding substrates for hollow structures. Various cells printing in the cmyk inkholds. Would you use an open cad program to build?

I want to build one (bio-printer) as well.Their is a new fablab here at CCBC and I'm hoping to build a mendel with HAC:DC
before the summer. Then we can fab more of these instruments.

How is the finished organ nourished?

Ryan

[Forrest Flanagan]

The machine can't print capillaries, so a printed heart dies fairly soon, even when soaked in a nutrient bath and oxygenated.

The only really viable organs coming off of it right now are one that can get by with diffusion, so thin-walled things like bladders.

[General Oya]

So the livers and lungs are just previously grown structures that have had their native cells washed away then had human cells seeded into the structures to re establish their differentiation? I know they've printed bones, bladders and veins.

I was under the impression that Bio-Printers had evolved the capacity to print these microfluidic channels with endothielial cells and washable substrate.

-
Ryan

[Nathan McCorkle]

I highly doubt a printer could print the 100 micron wide channels with
any kind of decency... why not focus on how a single cell would create
these intricate structures on its own...

[Simon Quellen Field]

Nathan said: "I highly doubt a printer could print the 100 micron wide channels".

Cheap inkjet printers can do 2400 to 9600 dots per inch.

That's 10 microns and 2 microns, respectively.

100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter. Visible to the naked eye.

-----

Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"

[Nathan McCorkle]

hmm, so maybe after printing some generic cells, you could shine a
lithography mask and one color induces myoblasts/myocytes and another
color induces endothelial cells to generate... or maybe you don't
print as much as wash a substrate with cells, and the ones that don't
get turned on via the light mask don't attach

[MPekala]

Hey guys.

I am 90% done a bio-printer based off my old chocolate 3D printer.
Also, actually printing channels like that is somewhat not feasible. I
know they say 9600 DPI but they aren't accurate enough to print over
the same area more then once at that resolution, I.E. the first
channel print pass will be off by about 1 to 2 mils from the previous
pass. Additionally even when printing pictures you don't get anything
like that resolution. Bloody marketers :|

On Mar 11, 12:11 pm, Simon Quellen Field <sfi...@scitoys.com> wrote:
> Nathan said: "I highly doubt a printer could print the 100 micron wide
> channels".
>
> Cheap inkjet printers can do 2400 to 9600 dots per inch.
> That's 10 microns and 2 microns, respectively.
> 100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter. Visible to the naked eye.
> -----
> Get a free science project every week! "http://scitoys.com/newsletter.html"
>
> On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 12:06 PM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I highly doubt a printer could print the 100 micron wide channels with
> > any kind of decency... why not focus on how a single cell would create
> > these intricate structures on its own...
>

> > On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 2:05 PM, General Oya <general...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > So the livers and lungs are just previously grown structures that have
> > had
> > > their native cells washed away then had human cells seeded into the
> > > structures to re establish their differentiation? I know they've printed
> > > bones, bladders and veins.
>
> > > I was under the impression that Bio-Printers had evolved the capacity to
> > > print these microfluidic channels with endothielial cells and washable
> > > substrate.
>
> > > -
> > > Ryan
>
> > > On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Forrest Flanagan <

> > solenoidcl...@gmail.com>

> > > wrote:
>
> > >> The machine can't print capillaries, so a printed heart dies fairly
> > soon,
> > >> even when soaked in a nutrient bath and oxygenated.
> > >> The only really viable organs coming off of it right now are one that
> > can
> > >> get by with diffusion, so thin-walled things like bladders.
>

> > >> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 6:20 PM, General Oya <general...@gmail.com>

> > wrote:
>
> > >>> So are they printing just undifferentiated myoblasts only, or are the
> > >>> wells filled with endothielial, nerve(purkinje) cells and smooth
> > cardiac
> > >>> myocetes? I've heard that their is washable matrix seeding substrates
> > for
> > >>> hollow structures. Various cells printing in the cmyk inkholds. Would
> > you
> > >>> use an open cad program to build?
>
> > >>> I want to build one (bio-printer) as well.Their is a new fablab here at
> > >>> CCBC and I'm hoping to build a mendel with HAC:DC
> > >>> before the summer. Then we can fab more of these instruments.
>
> > >>> How is the finished organ nourished?
>
> > >>> Ryan
>
> > >>> On Thu, Mar 10, 2011 at 12:54 AM, Nathan McCorkle <nmz...@gmail.com>
> > >>> wrote:
>

> > >>>> On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 4:54 PM, William Heath <wghe...@gmail.com>

> > wrote:
> > >>>> > Hi Jonathan,
>
> > >>>> > The question I have is if the platform does not move down, would you
> > >>>> > just
> > >>>> > add more water/solution between layered prints?  Do you feel the
> > cells
> > >>>> > would
> > >>>> > not move erratically as they went down to the hydrogel in
> > >>>> > semi-deep/deep
> > >>>> > solution?  I hope your right!
>
> > >>>> I think you would want to print above any water line, potentially
> > >>>> washing between layers with some sort of protein/ECM glue/protein
> > >>>> ligating enzyme.
>
> > >>>> > -Tim
>

> > >>>> > On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 9:43 PM, JonathanCline <jncl...@gmail.com>

[John Griessen]

On 03/11/2011 02:11 PM, Simon Quellen Field wrote:

> 100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter. Visible to the naked eye.

And another benchmark I've mentioned before is circuit board fabbing is done to
4 mil widths as a normal controllable cheap process. 4 mils is 100 microns. Masks
and results with +/- 5% accuracy at 100 microns copper width, (or etch resist for glass),
are ordinary printed circuit fabbing dimensions.

John

[Cathal Garvey]

Don't they use advanced photolithography for thing pcbs these days? I imagine it's easier to get that resolution with actual lasers than 'laserjet' printers.

Probably the best way to get capillaries and other fine structures is to do what nature does: code for the gross structure and allow supply-and-demand interactions and fractal growth to guide the growth of smaller features.

In other words, figure out a cocktail of growth factors that permit starving cells to call out to nearby blood vessels to grow branches toward them. You can learn a lot here by studying tumour angiogenesis, because tumours already abuse this system to grow larger than 2mm or so.

On 22 Mar 2011 23:15, "John Griessen" <jo...@industromatic.com> wrote:

On 03/11/2011 02:11 PM, Simon Quellen Field wrote:

> 100 microns is a tenth of a millimeter. Visibl...

And another benchmark I've mentioned before is circuit board fabbing is done to
4 mil widths as a normal controllable cheap process.  4 mils is 100 microns.  Masks
and results with +/- 5% accuracy at 100 microns copper width, (or etch resist for glass),
are ordinary printed circuit fabbing dimensions.

John

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