WORLD’S FIRST PRINTED 3D EAR TRANSPLANT
HEAR this! A New York City–based biotech company claims it has created the world’s first printed 3-D body part built using a patient’s own cells and the astonishingly natural-looking ear was successfully transplanted by doctors!
Experts explain the surgery — which repaired a 20-yearold woman’s right ear that had been misshapen since birth — was part of a clinical trial to test the revolutionary tissueengineering technology.
According to 3DBio Therapeutics, the patient’s new ear was printed in under ten minutes and replicated the look of her healthy left ear. The company claims the transplant will continue to regenerate cartilage and feel like a normal ear. They expect the manmade tissue won’t be rejected by the patient’s immune system since it contains her own cells.
3DBio has yet to fully disclose the technical details of the process. But they promise to publish their data in a medical journal upon completion of the full trial, which will follow 11 patients for five years.
While other medical professionals have utilized 3-D printing to create custom-fit prosthetics, the ear implant is the first of its kind to use harvested live cells.
The patient’s chondrocytes — cells responsible for cartilage formation — were isolated from a tissue sample and grown in a slurry of nutrients. Nathaniel Bachrach, 3DBio’s chief scientific officer, explains the cells were then mixed with the company’s collagen-based bio-ink “like chocolate chips mixed into cookie dough ice cream” to fashion the ear.
The firm hopes with more research, parts such as spinal discs, noses and reconstructive tissue for lumpectomies could be developed.