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IPFS News Link • Health and Physical Fitness

Scientists create cartilage using 3-D ’tissue printer’

• David Ferguson via RawStory.com
 

Scientists at Wake Forest University in North Carolina have developed a “tissue printer” that “prints” cartilage, the flexible connective tissue that cushions our bones and joints. According to the Toronto Star, the printer, which was featured in a study published in the journal Biofabrication by the Institute of Physics, is a combination of an ink-jet style printer and an electrospinning machine.

Study co-author and professor at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Dr. James Yoo said that the study “illustrates that a combination of materials and fabrication methods generates durable implantable constructs.”

Previous attempts to create cartilage found that natural materials resulted in tissue that wasn’t strong enough, but robotically constructed scaffolds made of synthetic polymers were prohibitively expensive and lacked flexibility.


www.universityofreason.com/a/29887/KWADzukm