3d printer with a printed human heart
One of the recurring themes during the HLTH conference’s early sessions has been how different technologies are gradually diffusing into healthcare. AI has become essential for industries as diverse as banking and ride sharing but has only recently started making an impact in the life sciences.
Another example is 3D printing, which is really good at printing relatively simple structures but has trouble with smaller, more complex items, such as capillaries. As part of a track called Fringes of Health Science on the first day of the HLTH conference, Elle Meyer, director of Life Sciences at Carbon, and Melanie Matheu, founder and CEO at Prellis Biologics, discussed how they are advancing 3D technologies to potentially improve care.
Meyer kicked off the session by noting that 50 million Americans have surgery each year and many of them come out with permanent implants. Sometimes that’s a good thing, a hip or knee, for example. However, Meyer pointed to polypropylene surgical mesh – and all the litigation surrounding it – as an example of how things can go wrong.
“The properties of this material were grossly mismatched with the native material,” said Meyer. “It basically acted as an abrasive, caused pain and inflammation and, in many cases, they actually had to go in and remove the implant.”
She also cited titanium implants, such as rods and screws, which are much harder than bone. As a result, they tend to bear the load, leading to bone loss, which in turn loosens the implant and can lead to complications.
Carbon’s solution is a 3D-printed, elastomeric, bioabsorbable material, which is designed to withstand compression, return to its original shape and ultimately disappear from the body. The company was inspired by porous bone structures, which are lightweight and strong, to form their materials into lattices. They can also engineer them to reabsorb at different rates, depending on the application.
In addition, they’ve created software that takes the properties they envision for the product and creates thousands of potential configurations to accelerate development.
The technology may be useful for soft tissue injuries, orthopedic repairs or create spacers to separate healthy tissue from potentially cancerous margins to guide radiation therapy.
“We can design elastomeric spacers that expand to the patient’s unique anatomy and degrade following the eight-week course of treatment,” said Meyer. “There’s no need to go in and remove it.”
Prellis is using 3D printing to create organs – tiny organoids to test drugs in the short term and, eventually, complete organs for transplant. Matheu noted that current approaches to transplants simply cannot keep up with demand and many die waiting for surgery or don’t even make it to the transplant lists.
“The vision of our company is to produce on-demand functional replacement tissue and organs,” said Matheu.
Whether producing an organoid or a complete organ, the sticking point has been making tiny capillaries, which are absolutely essential to bring in nutrients and remove waste.
The company has tested their laser printing process with 30 cell types and is working with various academic organizations to advance their research and refine the process. They are taking baby steps towards whole organs, working on functional human arteries for transplant and printing nephrons, the tiny structures that provide a kidney’s all-important filtering function.
Prellis’ vision is to create a wide range of printable organs to support healthy lifespans.
“Our goal is to make old age healthy for everyone,” said Matheu.” We’ll all have third acts in life, and we won’t be dragging around oxygen tanks.”
Photo: Scharfsinn86, Getty Images
