Researchers print blood vessels with modified ink jet printer

We talk about the paperless office, which means that we can throw away our file cabinets and printers. Perhaps not the printers, though, as researchers at the Tokyo Medical and Dental University have developed a working method of constructing small blood vessels using something akin to a modified inkjet printer. The prototype blood vessel was made possible by a specially designed inkjet printer made at the Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology. It uses a mixture of living cells, a special type of medical gel, and a solution of calcium chloride. The mixture of cells and gel is injected into the calcium chloride solution in a spiral pattern. The calcium chloride reacts with the gel, causing it to turn solid and keeping the cells in their desired shape. They have thus far printed small blood vessels of 1 mm in diameter and 30 mm long. The interior wall of the blood vessel is that of endothelial cells while the outer wall consists of muscle cells, just like an ordinary vessel.

The current prototype is weak and would be incapable of surviving the pulsing pressure of flowing blood within the human body, and work will be required to strenghtn it. On the bright side, the gel suspension used is non-toxic and has been used in medical science for years. In time it may well be possible for doctors to simply print out new blood vessels for patients as needed, which is good news for emergency — but also elective — procedures.