California Company Says They Are Making Progress Toward 3-D Printed Liver Tissue
SANTA CLARA (CBS SF) -- A California-based company said they are making progress toward creating liver tissue using a 3-D printer, the company's CEO announced Wednesday.
As part of a keynote address at the Inside 3D Printing conference in Santa Clara, Organovo CEO Keith Murphy told the attendees the new liver tissue could launch as early as next month.
According to industry website On 3D Printing, Murphy said the technology remains in its infancy. The website said printing entire human organs is a long way off. While Organovo has developed 3D printed organs being tested in animals, clinical trials for partial organs is 4-6 years away and entire organs further than that.
Based in San Diego, Organovo creates tissues with a 3-D printer to test the effects of drugs and for therapies.
On its website, Organovo describes its business as threefold. The last item may be the most groundbreaking, and most challenging:
FROM OGANOVO: Our goal is to build living human tissues that are proven to function like native tissues. With reproducible 3D tissues that accurately represent human biology, we are enabling ground-breaking therapies by:
- Partnering with biopharmaceutical companies and academic medical centers to design, build, and validate more predictive in vitro tissues for disease modeling and toxicology.
- Giving researchers something they have never had before: the opportunity to test drugs on functional human tissues before ever administering the drug to a living person; bridging the gulf between preclinical testing and clinical trials.
- Creating functional, three dimensional tissues that can be implanted or delivered into the human body to repair or replace damaged or diseased tissues.
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