3D printed human hearts could be a reality within 10 YEARS

Scientists could be able to 3D print human hearts within the next ten years.A team of experts has claimed they will be able to make whole hearts for use in transplant surgery using the recipients’ cells within a decade.Dr Stuart Williams claims he and his colleagues have already created a coronary artery and that they have 3D printed some of the small blood vessels in the heart.‘America put a man on the Moon in less than a decade. I said a full decade to provide some wiggle room,’ Dr Williams, from the University of Louisville, told Wired.co.ukHe told the website: ‘These studies have reached the advanced preclinical stage showing printed blood vessels will reconnect with the recipient tissue creating new blood flow in the printed tissue.’The team at the University of Louisville’s Cardiovascular Innovation Institute are developing special 3D printers for the creation of artificial hearts.They will initially be used to print individual component parts of a heart but the team believe they will eventually be able to print the whole organ in about three hours.This will include printing heart muscle, blood vessels, valves and electrical tissue.They say that once the heart is printed, it will need about a week to ‘mature’ before it is given to the recipient.Dr Williams believes some of the parts will need to be assembled after they have been printed, including some of the blood vessels and the valves – he says the technology does not have the capacity to create a ready-assembled heart.Dr Williams told the website: ‘Final construction will be achieved by bioprinting and strategic placement of the valves and big vessels.’He explained that the recipient would have to have surgery to remove tissue, probably fat, from which regenerative cells could be singled out. These cells would then be combined with a solution that can be put in the printer to allow it to print the heart.The team believe that the recipient's body will be unlikely to reject the transplanted organ as it will be made from their own cells.In the past, scientists who have created 3D printed organs – such as part of a liver - have struggled to keep them alive.Dr Williams hopes to avoid this problem with the 3D printed heart by encouraging the recipient's cells to knit together naturally with the printed vessels. He says the 3D printed blood vessels should be able to connect with the patient's vessels allowing the blood to flow through the heart and keeping it alive.The team hope machines that can 3D print hearts will eventually be as common place in hospitals as X-ray machines.Dr Williams and his team have already successfully printed parts of mice hearts and a team at the University of Kentucky have used the technology to grow new bones for rabbits.(dailymail.co.uk)ANN.Az