Scientists trying to use 3D printer to build human heart

Scientists in the US are attempting to build a human heart with a 3D printer.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a new heart for a patient with their own cells that could be transplanted.

It is an ambitious project to first make a heart, then get it to work in a patient, and it could be years — perhaps decades — before a 3D printed heart would be put in a person.

The technology, though, is not all that futuristic. Researchers have already used 3D printers to make splints and even a human ear.

So far, the University of Louisville in Kentucky has printed human heart valves and small veins with cells and they can construct some other parts with other methods, said Stuart Williams, a cell biologist leading the project.

They have also successfully tested the tiny blood vessels in mice and other small animals and Prof Williams believes they can print parts and assemble an entire heart in three to five years.

The finished product would be called the “bioficial heart” — a blend of natural and artificial.

The biggest challenge is to get the cells to work together as they do in a normal heart, says Prof Williams, who heads the project at the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute.

An organ built from a patient’s cells could solve the rejection problem some patients have with donor organs or an artificial heart, and it could eliminate the need for anti-rejection drugs, he said.

If everything goes to plan, Prof Williams says the heart might be tested in humans in less than a decade.

Hospitals in Louisville have a history of artificial heart achievements. The second successful US surgery of an artificial heart, the Jarvik 7, was implanted in Louisville in the mid-1980s. Doctors from the University of Louisville implanted the first self-contained artificial heart, the AbioCor, in 2001.

Prof Williams said the heart he envisaged would be built from cells taken from the patient’s fat. But plenty of difficulties remain, including understanding how to keep manufactured tissue alive after it is printed.