his team are using 3-D printers to create tiny replicas of human organs, including miniature lungs and colons
Holy cow, I know we all wanted flying cars but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
I hope this tech makes the Chinese organ black market to collapse.
That is a really interesting possibility! It would sure be nice to remove the profit from such activity as soon as possible, though I think more work would need to be done to totally fabricate an organ that could be used for human transplant (which I assume is where most black market organs are used)?
Nah. Most black market organs are things like rhinoceros horn or bear gall bladder or some such. "Traditional medicine".
OTOH, printing organs for transplant would be extremely beneficial, if only because you could culture the ink out of the patient's own stem cells, so there wouldn't be a problem with rejection.
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Now THIS is the future! (Score:5, Insightful)
his team are using 3-D printers to create tiny replicas of human organs, including miniature lungs and colons
Holy cow, I know we all wanted flying cars but in many ways this is even cooler and more useful! This kind of thing is indeed something that just screams "Here comes the future!".
Re: (Score:1)
Except cows are not holy.
Other than that, I hope this tech makes the Chinese organ black market to collapse.
Re:Now THIS is the future! (Score:1)
Except cows are not holy.
Well... [learnreligions.com]
I hope this tech makes the Chinese organ black market to collapse.
That is a really interesting possibility! It would sure be nice to remove the profit from such activity as soon as possible, though I think more work would need to be done to totally fabricate an organ that could be used for human transplant (which I assume is where most black market organs are used)?
Re: (Score:2)
Nah. Most black market organs are things like rhinoceros horn or bear gall bladder or some such. "Traditional medicine".
OTOH, printing organs for transplant would be extremely beneficial, if only because you could culture the ink out of the patient's own stem cells, so there wouldn't be a problem with rejection.