Contribution Essay Summary: Printing A Human Kidney

Printing A Human Kidney Have you ever thought that printing something off a 3D printer could go inside your body and work like it had belonged there? For Anthony Atala this is his goal. Anthony Atala is not any average practicing surgeon. He is the director at Wake Forest Institute for regenerative medicine, which is not an easy field to be in. He is making the way for regenerative medicine, a more practical idea for the future. Atala has done hundreds of regenerative surgeries and has helped so many people. He’s also a well known author and speaker to promote regenerative surgeries and get more people to understand his goal. He is spending countless hours in his lab trying to find new ways to help the human body generate back to peak performance.
Atala said that “This book was so prominent that some of the suture techniques for blood vessels and blood vessel grafts are still in use today”. He also stated that the lack of advancement in the field was due to three things, “biomaterials, cells, and blood systems.” Biomaterials and cells are becoming easier to make and replicate now, but the blood system part of this is still stumping scientists. They can 3D print a liver or kidney in seven to twelve hours, which has the shape and feeling of the organ. The hard part is getting blood and stem cells to interact and grow as if they were a liver or kidney itself. This is still years away from clinical trials, but is in the process of development. He wants people to live longer, happier lives as a whole. Atala has made his entire career and research following this goal. I personally do not see how this could be achieved with everyone's different blood types and regulated hormones from the natural body. Unless there are different models for blood types and sizes from big to small. I am assuming this is possible because of one of the first ten patients he did a surgery like this
Instead of using ink and carbon he uses natural cells in the body and then can be implanted into the human skeleton. He has done bone implants and they have been successful so far. His main problem is with growing blood vessels for 3D printed organs. I personally am glad this research is going on because my genes are not forgiving when it comes to kidneys. This type of research is going to help out millions of people. Not just for organs, but maybe in the future even eyes or limbs. He uses stem cells and is slowly learning more and more about their potential to help out all parts of medicine. My cousin for example, has a very rare cancer called multiple myeloma. Which is in his lower back and is eating away at his spinal cord. So they are getting his body's immune system to zero and then zapping the cancer cells out until they are dead. They took seventeen million yes, seventeen million stem cells from healthy parts of his body to put back into his bones to assist them to grow back again. We had to look for compliant stem cells and bone marrow that matched his so he could have this procedure. Going back to what I said previously, I do not understand how we can print off a kidney or blood producing bone and it match the person who needs the