3D printer to create human tissue aboard International Space Station
GREENVILLE, Ind., June 3, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Two high-tech companies have teamed up to develop the first 3D printer capable of manufacturing human tissue (including, someday, organs) in the microgravity condition of space. Techshot Inc., a commercial developer and operator of spaceflight equipment; and nScrypt, a manufacturer of the world’s most advanced industrial 3D bioprinters and electronics printers, developed the 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF). The BFF will use adult human cells (such as stem or pluripotent cells) and adult tissue-derived proteins as its bioink to create viable tissue. A small bio-ink startup, Bioficial Organs, also was consulted on the project. It will launch to the International Space Station in July aboard the SpaceX CRS-18 cargo mission from Florida’s Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. Though the prospect of manufacturing hearts and other organs via a 3D bioprinter is likely a decade away, the July launch is a significant milestone in that quest. The initial phase for BFF, which could last about two years, will involve creating test prints of cardiac-like tissue of increasing thickness. The next phase, where heart patches are manufactured in space and evaluated on the ground (under a microscope and perhaps in small animals such as rats) could last through approximately 2024. Ultimately, long-term success of BFF could lead to reducing the current shortage of donor organs and eliminate the requirement that someone must first die in order for another person to receive a new heart, other organ or tissue. Why produce human tissue or organs in space? Once printed in space, the structures will be placed in a cell-culturing system that strengthen them over time, to the point where they become viable, self-supporting tissues that will remain solid once back in Earth’s gravity. Techshot President and CEO John Vellinger said the July launch of BFF is the culmination of more than four years of research and planning. “The concept of developing tissue or an organ in space with a 3D bioprinter has been with us for years,” he said. “From the technological and biological perspectives, making it real has been a painstaking process of experiments and testing. To see this coming together is an amazing thing for the team, as well as for all of medical science.” For nScrypt CEO Ken Church, Ph.D., BFF’s long-term potential is very personal. Twenty-four years ago Church’s daughter was born with one lung. She survived and today lives an active and full life despite her missing lung. But Church remembers thinking aloud: “I wish we could just make her another lung.” Today, the prospect of making a lung is not so farfetched. “Assembling a human lung or other organ is still years away, but it is no longer science fiction.” Church said. “BFF is the roadmap for getting there. And this BFF team knows how to follow that map. I have no doubt someday BFF will provide someone like my daughter with a second lung.” BFF success can lead to numerous medical breakthroughs
About Techshot Inc. About nScrypt nScrypt’s BAT, the world’s first commercially available bioprinter (developed under a contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) – won R&D Magazine’s 2003 Top 100 award. www.nScrypt.com Contact:
SOURCE Techshot Inc. |