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Welcome to our 30th News In Review for 2017!
We’ve all heard of the 3D printed heart and ear tissue. There is much more to bioprinting than these initial steps and, thanks to new technologies, explorations and endeavors, the road ahead is looking a whole lot more exciting. New technologies enable researchers with nanoscale control of the manufacturing environment, both low-powered and more precise, to create bioprinted scaffolds for a variety of uses. Synthetic biologist will surely make good use of the new tech: 3D printed bioreactors can be manufactured to generate specific kinds of biologic products, like proteins of even antibiotics. Bioprinting is skyrocketing, beyond the confines of our atmosphere. NASA has revealed plans to bring bioprinted cancer cells to the ISS in order to study potential treatments in a controlled, zero-g environment.
Light-directed assembly using gold nano-rods opens up 3D bioprinting applications
[…] the use of high-powered lasers to pattern micro/nanoscale objects has drawbacks. In particular, the substantial energy required to move material or objects means that high throughput of material is not possible. Now a team at the National University of Singapore have announced another technique to engineer living tissue. In the paper “Effective Light Directed Assembly of Building Blocks with Microscale Control” a method for improving control over the micro structure with light-directed assembly is described. The researchers believe their method could have applications for bioprinting, tissue engineering, and advanced manufacturing. Working with microfluidic-fabricated monodispersed biocompatible microparticles the scientists were able to fabricate a structure.
Check out the rest of the article here.
A better way to make drinks and drugs
Carefully selected molds churn out antibiotics. Specially engineered bacteria, living in high-tech bioreactors, pump out proteinaceous drugs such as insulin. Some brave souls even talk of taking on the petroleum industry by designing yeast or algae that will synthesize alternatives to aviation fuel and the like. Dr Nelson’s bioreactors are composed of a substance called a hydrogel, which is about 70% water. The remaining 30% is a special polymer, infused with yeast. [It can] be extruded smoothly through the nozzle of a 3D printer.The fun starts when such a [hydrogel] cube is plopped into a solution of glucose. The hydrogel is permeable to this solution, so the yeast is able to get to work on the glucose, converting it into ethanol as if it were the sugar in the wort of a brewery. […] The surprise was that it keeps on doing so, day after day, week after week, as long as the fermented solution is regularly replaced with fresh. The team’s bioreactors have continued to produce ethanol in this way for over four months now, with no signs of slowing down.
Read the full article on The Economist’s website.
NASA to take cancer fight into space with bioprinted cells
NASA has revealed plans to grow bioprinted cancer cells in space in a bid to advance cancer research. Utilizing the microgravity environment, NASA hopes to the cell structures will grow in a more natural spherical shape. Since, back on earth in vitro the cells have only able been able to grow in two-dimensional layers. However to harness the cells without the presence of gravity, NASA is hoping to employ magnets.
Read more about NASA’s plans here.
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