The International Space Station ( ISS ) is not a position where astronauts simply go gad for a few months . It is an active lab , pushing the envelope of what we fuck in many scientific and technical fields . Now , astronauts on the ISS have experience a new load of skill experiments to work on . Among them is one that draw a bead on to build human tissue in space .
The experimentation is called theBioFabrication Facility(BFF ) and was taken to the ISS by a SpaceX rocket as part of their latestCargo Resupply Service . It was developed collaboratively by Techshot and nScrypt . The machine is a 3D printer but alternatively of printing charge card , it will be printing human tissue , specifically a cardiac patch , tissue design to bring around a damaged heart .
Many scientists have been working on the increase of organs in the lab , and while amazing achievements have been reached in the last X , there are still huge challenges when it fall to growing full organs . In finical , researcher have clamber to retrace the more minute structure line up inside organs . Organs also ask to be built on scaffolds to hold their shape , but so far there ’s no scaffold that can be removed without harming the newly built electric organ .
This is where the ISS might have a unique reward . The space station is in ceaseless free fall around Earth , so the environment experiences microgravity . This means it is possible that tissue paper could grow there without the need for scaffolding . If this is the sheath , it might open up a novel boulevard to how we might grow electronic organ in the futurity .
The system will be installed by the astronauts but will be control from Earth . The tissue will be printed inside cell - culture bioreactor cassette and then put into a different objet d’art of technical school where they will continue to incubate and be canvas . researcher gestate this stage to last several month before the textile is sent back to Earth .
“ The concept of developing tissue paper or an electronic organ in space with a 3D bioprinter has been with us for years , ” Techshot President and CEO John Vellinger say in astatement . “ From the technological and biological perspectives , making it existent has been a painstaking process of experiments and testing . To see this coming together is an amazing matter for the squad , as well as for all of aesculapian science . ”
Obviously , the power to 3D print organs would have immense implications . It would aid to cut down the organ conferrer deficit and make donation dependable , as organs would be made with the patient role ’s own stem cells . attain this exploit is still far into the future , but BFF might provide an crucial cue to how to get there faster .
