A Russian company has announced a successful experiment implanting 3D-printed thyroid glands into mice. The results, which some experts say might revolutionise medicine, will be published next week,
“We had some difficulties during the study, but in the end the thyroid gland turned out to be functional,” said Dmitri Fadin, development director at 3D Printing Solutions, to RBTH.
3D Bioprinting Solutions printed the thyroid gland — or to be exact, the gland’s organ construct — in March of this year. At that time, scientific laboratories were saying that they will start printing human thyroid glands if the experiment is successful.
3D Bioprinting Solutions uses existing 3D print technology that makes items from plastic, ceramic and metals, but it had to make adaptations for biological material, that is, for cells. Before transplanting the artificial gland, scientists “carved out” a thyroid in the mice using radioactive iodine.
Vladimir Mironov founded 3D Bioprinting Solutions in 2013. He a tissue engineer, and co-founder of two startups in the U.S., Cardiovascular Tissue Technology, and Cuspis.
This story first appeared in Russia Beyond the Headlines, an international source of political, business and cultural news and analysis.
