Anthony Atala is a pioneer in bio-printing. In this talk, he introduced his work in regenerative medicine field. In the beginning of the talk, Anthony explained why regenerative medicine became science fact. Due to the fact that people live longer than ever, we would all face organ aging issues. The desperate need of organ replacement becomes inevitable. Regenerative medicine comes in and offers the potential to improve the living quality of human beings.
The traditional way of engineering a human organ is to harvest human cells from human bodies and reproduce them in the lab. Researchers have to grow them by hand. However, it is much more difficult for a complicated full engineering organs. A new technology today mentioned by the speaker is "Bio-printing". It was still a prototype in 2011. His team collected human cells from human bodies and multiply them in the lab. Those bio-material becomes the "biological ink" of 3D printer. Through digital image processing, 3D printer can actually print a kidney layer by layer. This 3D-printed kidney drew wild applause when the speaker holds it up to the audiences.
Another highlight in the end of the talk was the reunion with Luke, one of the first 10 people to receive an engineering organ. Luke's experience demonstrated bio-printing really can make patients better even this technology is still in early stage.
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