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The next step: 3D printing the human body
Bioprinting, or the process of creating human tissues through 3D printers, is a highly contested area of technological innovation. Theoretically it could save the economy billions on a global scale, whilst boosting weak or war-torn countries' access to more affordable health care and provision, whether producing prosthetic limbs or highly customised fully-working human organs.
From a technological perspective, the rise and development of 3D printing and its capabilities will play an undeniable part in our future lives. But how does the process work?
UK-based company PrinterInks has teamed up with US startup Organovo, a company specialised in designing and printing functional human tissue for medical research and therapeutic applications, to create a visual guide to the subject.
3D printed human tissue is created by using modified printer cartridges and extracted cells, sourced from patient biopsies with respect to examining cancer cells, or stem cells. They're grown using standard techniques and cultured in a growth medium in dishes, allowing them to multiply.
Once enough cells have grown, they're collected and formed into spheroids or other shapes and loaded into a cartridge to create BioInk.
The BioInk is loaded into a NovoGen MMX bioprinter along with a cartridge of Hydrogel, a kind of synthetic matrix effectively used as a kind of scaffolding for building 3D layers of cells. The printer prints a layer of the water-based gel, followed by a layer of BioInk cells, and so on. The layered calls naturally fuse together as the layers and built upon.
The printer with its BioInk and Hydrogel cartridges
Once the desired amount of layers is printed, the printed tissue is left to mature and grow as a structure, during which time the hydrogel is removed. Other researchers experimenting with bioprinting have used a sugar and water solution as a form of support for the vascular structures to great success.
Currently printed tissues are generally used for medical research; introducing disease to monitor how the tissue reacts and how future treatments may be developed. In the future, it's very likely 3D printers will be used to create simple tissues for implanting into current organs and partial organs. The printing of whole organs, if approved, could be a reality within the next decade.
Organovo recently bioprinted its first 3D liver tissue for testing purposes, and can create 24 strips of liver tissues within a single plate. In 2010 the company also printed the first human blood vessel without the use of scaffolds.
They estimate it would currently take 10 days to print an average sized liver and lobe, but estimate the speed and efficiency with which they could create such tissue structures will greatly advance in the future. After all, it would currently take 1,690,912,929,600 hours to print a liver for every member of the human race using the process in its current form.
In the mean time, Organovo plans to market and launch its 3D liver tissue to pharmaceutical companies and research labs by the end of December, and is currently developing bioprinted breast cancer tissues alongside lung and muscle tissues. With the technology advancing at such a rate, entire organs and bodies produced by 3D printers is becoming a concrete reality, rather than a freaky sci-fi concept.
The bionic ear in all its glory
In August last year the Hangzhou Dianzi University in China announced it had created biomaterial 3D printer Regenovo, which printed a small working kidney that lasted four months. Earlier in 2013, a two-year-old child in the US received a windpipe built with her own stem cells, and Princeton University printed a 'bionic ear' using a modified ink-jet printer onto a petri dish.
Ethically and morally, concerns have been raised over ensuring the quality of the organs, and who controls the right to produce them. Others claim 3D printing human components further blurs the line between man and machine, giving us the right to 'play God' on an unprecedented scale. But there is no denying that bioprinting has the potential to revolutionise medicine and healthcare beyond what seemed possible even 20 years ago.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10629531/The-next-step-3D-printing-the-human-body.html
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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