Now You Can Print "Skin" with Inkjet Cartridges
With more than 570 entries in this blog and with topics raging from ink cartridge reviews, printing ideas, tips and much more we've got to admit that this unprecedented news took us by surprice. Printing new "skin" was something we never could have imagined.
To start let's make it clear that YOU can't print skin from your regular inkjet printer. And that most of us won't ever get to do it but researchers at Wake Forest University have found a way to use everyday inkjet printers to quickly create skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns from the battlefield.
What scientist have found is a way to use sterile inkjet cartridges and printer heards to bioprint skin cells in 3D patterns this way tissue can be built in layers. Dr. Anthony Atala director of the institute stated the following:“Using modified ink-jet printers has greatly accelerated the method of growing tissues, which in the past has been laboriously done by hand. Burns account for about one in 10 war wounds, so the demand for speed has driven research in skin grafting. The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine funded the Wake Forest project.”
To put it in easier terms basically what they do as per Atala is: “Different types of skin cells are placed in wells of a sterilized ink cartridge. The printer is programmed to arrange the cells in a specific order, an innovative adaption of technology that allows scientists to precisely arrange multiple cell types and other tissue components into predetermined locations.
The institute has adapted another common piece of office equipment to replicate skin cells: a scanner that when placed on a patient, copies skin much like an office photocopier reproduces documents”.
Find out more about the subject at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine site where you will find an excellent video showing you this great technology.
To start let's make it clear that YOU can't print skin from your regular inkjet printer. And that most of us won't ever get to do it but researchers at Wake Forest University have found a way to use everyday inkjet printers to quickly create skin for soldiers with life-threatening burns from the battlefield.
What scientist have found is a way to use sterile inkjet cartridges and printer heards to bioprint skin cells in 3D patterns this way tissue can be built in layers. Dr. Anthony Atala director of the institute stated the following:“Using modified ink-jet printers has greatly accelerated the method of growing tissues, which in the past has been laboriously done by hand. Burns account for about one in 10 war wounds, so the demand for speed has driven research in skin grafting. The Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine funded the Wake Forest project.”
To put it in easier terms basically what they do as per Atala is: “Different types of skin cells are placed in wells of a sterilized ink cartridge. The printer is programmed to arrange the cells in a specific order, an innovative adaption of technology that allows scientists to precisely arrange multiple cell types and other tissue components into predetermined locations.
The institute has adapted another common piece of office equipment to replicate skin cells: a scanner that when placed on a patient, copies skin much like an office photocopier reproduces documents”.
We at InkjetSuperstore want to congratulate this most ingenious discovery and great use of inkjet cartridges!
Find out more about the subject at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine site where you will find an excellent video showing you this great technology.
Posted by Karla Arostegui - Content Mgr. at 5/12/2010 7:27 AM 
Categories: Ink and Toner Cartridges
Tags: ink cartridges Inkjet Printer
Categories: Ink and Toner Cartridges
Tags: ink cartridges Inkjet Printer
The concept is one where you use your typical desktop inkjet printer, but instead of using ink in the cartridge you use cells, you use a printer to keep printing the tissue one layer at a time.
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