Researchers Use Living Cells, Special Gel To Print Human Body Parts.

According to Reuters (2/15, Boggs), researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine have developed a method of 3D printing which can produce bone, muscle, and cartilage templates which can then be implanted and survive in living tissue. The team said that five months after being implanted in mice, the templates appeared similar to normal human tissue. The findings were published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.
NBC News (2/15, Fox) reported that researchers “used a combination of living cells and a special gel to print out living human body parts – including ears, muscles and jawbones.” Their “approach mixes live cells with a gel that starts out as a liquid but quickly hardens to the consistency of living tissue, and layers them in with tiny tunnels that serve as passages for nutrients to feed the cells until blood vessels can grow in and do the job naturally.”
BBC News (UK) (2/16, Gallagher) reports that the process is called the Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP).

Also providing coverage are the Independent (UK) (2/15, Gallagher), Popular Mechanics (2/15, Herkewitz), Gizmodo (2/15, Dvorsky), the Chicago Tribune (2/15, Graham), and HealthDay (2/15, Norton).