How 3-D Printing Body Parts Will Revolutionize Medicine
Actor Bruce Willis gazes at visitors from the side of a machine in a 1,500-square-foot clean room at Organovo. Several of the company’s 10 bioprinters have been named and labeled for characters from the 1997 sci-fi film The Fifth Element. Steps from Willis’s “Dallas,” past a half dozen refrigerator-size incubators, sit the bioprinters “Ruby” and “Zorg,” adorned with photos of Chris Tucker and Gary Oldman, respectively.
In the film, set in the 23rd century, an automated pod with two robotic arms uses cells from a severed human hand to print and reanimate an entire woman. Science is a long way from accomplishing anything remotely close to this feat—and it may never get there. But a major milestone would be to develop tools advanced enough to clearly visualize and model the entire process.
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