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A Company Have 3D Printed a Mini Human Heart |
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A Chicago biotech company say they have 3D printed a mini human heart.
BIOLIFE4D, a pioneering biotech company, has announced this week it has reached a significant milestone, using proprietary bioink to successfully 3D bioprint a mini-heart with full structure of a whole heart, including chambers and ventricles.
The company say they have leveraged advances in tissue engineering to 3D print human organs viable for transplant, and have successfully demonstrated its ability to 3D bioprint a mini human heart, a significant step toward its goal of producing a full-sized human heart viable for transplant.
The scientific milestone was accomplished at the Company’s research facility at JLABS in Houston, and led by Dr. Ravi Birla, the Company’s Chief Science Officer. The successfully printed mini heart has the full structure of a full-sized heart, with four internal chambers. The mini heart is replicating partial functional metrics compared to a full-sized heart – as close as anyone has gotten to producing a fully functional heart through 3D bioprinting.
“We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished, from the ability to 3D bioprint human cardiac tissue last summer to a mini heart with full structure now. These milestones are a testament to the hard work of our team and the proprietary process we have developed that enables this type of scientific achievement,” said Dr. Ravi Birla, Chief Science Officer, BIOLIFE4D. “We believe we are at the forefront of whole heart bioengineering, a field that has matured quickly over the last year, and well positioned to continue our rapid scientific advancement. Today is an exciting day, but we continue forward earnestly toward the end goal of 3D bioprinting whole human hearts.”
The Company developed a proprietary bioink using a very specific composition of different extracellular matrix compounds that closely replicate the properties of the mammalian heart. Further, it has developed a novel and unique bioprinting algorithm, consisting of printing parameters optimized for the whole heart. Coupling its proprietary bioink with patient-derived cardiomyocytes and its enabling bioprinting technology, BIOLIFE4D is able to bioprint a heart that, while smaller in size, replicates many of the features of a human heart. With this platform technology in place, BIOLIFE4D is now well-positioned to build upon this platform and work towards the development of a full-scale human heart.
The successful demonstration of a mini heart is the latest in a string of scientific milestones from BIOLIFE4D as it seeks to produce the world’s first 3D bioprinted human heart viable for transplant. Earlier in 2019, the Company successfully 3D bioprinted various individual heart components, including valves, ventricles, blood vessels, and in June of 2018 it successfully 3D bioprinted human cardiac tissue (a cardiac patch) – all ahead of development times published in scientific literature.
BIOLIFE4D’s innovative 3D bioprinting process provides the ability to reprogram a patient’s own (white) blood cells to iPS cells, and then to differentiate those iPS cells into different types of cardiac cells needed to 3D bioprint individual cardia components and ultimately, a human heart viable for transplant. This means BIOLIFE4D can successfully 3D bioprint using cardiac cells derived from their own iPS cells to create living, viable constructs.
That ability is crucial as the Company seeks to disrupt how heart disease and other cardiac impairments are treated, particularly by improving the transplant process by eliminating the need for donor organs. Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women in the United States each year, yet countless individuals who need transplants are left waiting as there are not enough donors to meet demand.
“This is an incredibly exciting time for BIOLIFE4D, and we are so proud of Dr. Birla and the team for this tremendous accomplishment,” said Steven Morris, CEO, BIOLIFE4D. “We began this journey with an end goal of developing a technology that has the potential to save lives, and we are a step closer to that today. We will continue our work until we are able to 3D bioprint full-sized hearts for viable for transplant, and change the way heart disease is treated forever.” |
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