Researchers in Tel Aviv University (TAU) in Israel have successfully printed the world’s first 3D vascularized engineered heart with all the blood vessels, ventricles and chambers using the patient’s own tissue and biological matters .Till this breakthrough, 3D printing achievements in regenerative medicine has been only on the level of printing tissues.
The project head, Prof. Tal Dvir of TAU said “this is the first time anyone,anywhere has successfully engineered and printed an entire heart replete with cells, blood vessels, ventricles and chambers”. He extended, “In our process these materials serve as the bioinks, substances made of sugars and proteins that can be used for 3D printing of complex tissue models. People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels. Our results demonstrate the potential of our approach for engineering personalized tissue and organ replacement in the future”
To bring this idea to life, the team has used millions of cells while it takes billions of cells to make our hearts in its exact size. This heart is a miniature one; at the size of a rabbit’s and it doesn’t beat although it has all the blood vessels, ventricles and chambers. The researchers are in an early phase and to develop a heart that has the true human size is still a decade away. The challenges the researchers face is making this heart beat, make it supply blood and get it synchronize with the rest of the muscles.
Right now this miniature heart is a small step towards taking Medical Research powered by 3D Printing to the next phase. In the next decade, we may have a perfectly sized human heart, which could cure heart diseases and may aid greatly in heart transplantation surgeries.