Print out spare (human) parts 1 of 6
What if, in the future, you didn't have to pay marked-up prices for organs on the black market, risking rejection and bad horror movie plot lines? What if doctors could print up a fresh kidney, perfectly matched to your body, using a bioprinter? This revolutionary take on tissue assembly is being developed by Gabor Forgacs at the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Gabor Forgacs' real custom-built bioprinter (left) is based on existing inkjet printing technologies. The lab uses a modified version of a tissue engineering tool available from nScrypt Inc. for its research. The printer works by creating a sheet of biofriendly paper (ECM-containing hydrogels) which acts as a kind of scaffolding. Then it prints a layer of cells (spheroidal cell aggregates) on top of the sheet and repeats the process (right). The layered cells fuse together and the biopaper eventually dissolves.
The Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems (ENAS) in Germany has devised a way to print a battery by adapting and modifying current printer technology. This adorable little printed power cell is less than a millimeter thick and is made out of zinc and manganese (no mercury). The 1.5 V batteries can be printed in sets for higher voltage. ENAS thinks the batteries will be perfect for use in thin, flexible products like medical patches or sensor cards.
Memjet's super fast home printing technology has been tantalizingly close to being available for years. A Memjet printer has a fixed, extra wide print head instead of the typical small, moving print heads we see now. There is no warm up time and the printer can print continuously and spit out 60 pages per minute. It has been touted as a replacement for inkjet and laser printing, but the prototypes have to make it from the lab to stores first.
If you've had to gnaw on one of those cakes with the photo icing sheet on top, you know food printing still has a long way to go. There are some promising technologies under development. The CandyFab 6000 uses 3D fabrication technology to create delicious shapes from sugar. Moto restaurant in Chicago uses a regular Canon Inkjet printer to make edible courses out of soy based ink and paper.
Do you find the printing process a bit cold and impersonal? Are you sick of dealing with compatibility issues? Take the sizable amount of money you spend on ink and outsource your most prized printing projects to The Human Printer. The Human Printer is collection of real, living, breathing, dot making humans who will replicate your printed product by hand. They use the same process as a real printer, rendering images in CMYK halftones with pens. The final products are beautiful and imperfect.
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