Luminous Landscape Forum
Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Printing: Printers, Papers and Inks => Topic started by: NancyP on May 16, 2012, 02:32:41 pm
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OK, day job is as pathologist and scientist. I thought I might amuse the printing experts with something new to them.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0142961204003357
The cells are suspended in buffered saline at approximately 5 million per ml, and placed in ink cartridge.
The "paper" is an artificial gel composed of agar and collagen in nutrient medium, cast onto coverslips and left to set in a sterile incubator. The "paper" is run through the HP550C printer on the "special" one-sheet carriage, and cells are deposited in a pattern. The paper is then moved to a humid box inside the incubator, and later (after cells have attached fully) some nutrient media is added. Approximately 90% of cells survive this printing process.
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Thanks Nancy. That definitely seems to stretch the envelope of what inkjets can do. I can hardly wait to see if some gallery artist picks that up.
Does this mean that in the near future I will be able to print an assistant who will work for free and finally clean up the shop?
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Yah, but did you have a custom profile made first? : )
An amazing idea to print cells. The article says that it's a test to see if you can print them into "viable constructs". What kinds of constructs?
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All sorts of interesting blue-sky possibilities here:
1. Print-a-kidney, in which the dialysis membranes are manufactured by depositing the various types of kidney cells on the collagen membrane surface (ideal would be two-sided printing, endothelial cells on one side, kidney cells on the other side, kidney-specific mix of matrix proteins as the "paper"). Blood flows through chamber in contact with endothelial side, filtrate comes out through the kidney cell side. Current machine dialysis involves size filtration through inert membranes, plus extraction of excess salts or replacement of salts by diffusion to/from various chambers with specific salt concentrations.
2. neuronal migration and connection requirements in vitro. Lay down gradient of growth factors on one axis, gradient of cell density on other axis. Print-a-neuronal-circuit?
I haven't really thought out much of this, but the engineers and nanoscientists and biologists are also making biodetection apparati using specially engineered organisms (bacteria, mammalian cells in culture, even entire zebrafish). If there is a need for a specific 2-d relationship between cell type#1 and a cooperating cell type #2, printing could be a good way to provide reproducibility, and also relative immobility (instead of gloss optimizer, just apply an extra few layers of collagen gel to make a little cage for the cell group).
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HP550C? I wonder if the technique and calibrations will have to be revised when the HP550C has jetted its last dot?
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If you check out this March 2011 TED talk ( http://www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_printing_a_human_kidney.html ) by Anthony Atala, M.D., Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, you'll find an interesting demonstration of the concept of printing a new organ.
Ciao,
Doug
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Incredible stuff - printing spare parts for humans.
Sure makes me realize what a tiny little narrow life I lead.
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Forget the parts kit, I'll take a whole new body! And please super-size the lumbar region, etc. And I think my battered psyche could use some work as well.
The amazing thing is, stuff like that might not be as blue sky as it sounds.
Yes, there is a synergy building between all these disparate technologies. Will be fascinating to see where it leads. Wish I could be around for intellectual and memory prostheses, now that's interesting too. You know, record raw images directly from your eyes into trizigabyte flash cards that plug into one's navel. But I wander.
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Forget the parts kit, I'll take a whole new body!
I'll second that. Think they could print me a Marilyn Monroe?
Seriously though, this technology is amazing. Thanks for sharing Nancy.