Chicago Biotech Company Prints 3D Mini Human Heart
The Chicago-based biotech company BIOLIFE4D announced on September 9, 2019 that it has successfully 3D-bioprinted a mini human heart. The tiny heart has the same structure as a full-sized heart, and the company says it's an important milestone in the push to create an artificial heart viable for transplant.
The heart was printed with patient-derived cardiac muscle cells, or cardiomyocytes, and bioink made from extracellular matrix compounds that replicate the properties of the mammalian heart. BIOLIFE4D first bioprinted human cardiac tissue in June 2018. Earlier this year, the company bioprinted individual heart components, including valves, ventricles and blood vessels. Its process involves reprogramming a patient's white blood cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS cells), which can differentiate into different types of cells, including cardiac cells.
Eventually, the company hopes to bioprint a full-sized functioning human heart. Theoretically, bioprinted hearts could reduce or eliminate the need for donor organs. In addition to the obvious application in the possibilities for heart transplants, the company also sees this development as an opportunity for pharmaceutical companies, allowing them to test products in safe environments, on more accurate models, and on more rapid timeframes.
“We began this journey with an end goal of developing a technology that has the potential to save lives, and we are a step closer to that today,” CEO Steven Morris said. “We will continue our work until we are able to 3D bioprint full-sized hearts viable for transplant, and change the way heart disease is treated forever.”