According to the authors, their technique will be useful in regenerative medicine – printed organs can be used both in transplantation and in less serious cardiac surgery. Harvard scientists have developed a new set of techniques for heart engineering.

How the organ was printed

Engineers and biologists have used bioinks with densely packed building blocks of contractile organs (OBBs) made up of cardiomyocytes and used them to print pages of complex heart tissue. These letters have a similar organization and functionality to the actual layers of the human heart muscle. In the future, scientists will be able to assemble transplantable organs by printing such tissues in several layers.

The ability to effectively simulate the alignment of the heart’s contractile system along its hierarchy from individual cells to the thicker heart tissue consisting of several layers is crucial for creating functional heart tissue for replacement therapy,
– said Jennifer Lewis, head of the study.

The new technology is based on the existing Wyss SWIFT 3D printing system. Their technology could prove useful long before 3D printers learned to print full-fledged organs, the researchers said. According to them, printed fabrics can be used to replace scars after a heart attack or to study diseases in the laboratory. In addition, this technology can be used to support children with congenital heart disease.

why is it important

Cardiovascular disease is one of the leading causes of death among children and adults not only in the United States but also worldwide. In the United States alone, approximately 659,000 people die from such diseases each year. Of the large number of patients with critical heart disease, about 3.5 thousand are waiting for a transplant. Most of these patients had to wait more than six months for surgery, and some did not receive donor organs, the researchers said.