Published in Chemistry World, 17 May 2013
Engineers in the US have created a bionic ear that can be manufactured using a 3D printer. The device is the first to use 3D printing to interweave electronics and biological tissue, the researchers claim, and will pave the way for other bionic implants.
Although bionic organs, and cybernetics in general, have become a hot research topic in recent years, devices are still primitive. Scientists can implant electronics into or on top of tissue to help patients restore some loss of function, but entire synthetic organs are difficult to manufacture. One method is to seed cells onto a gel scaffold, and culture them until they form a tissue in the scaffold’s shape. But such tissues are rarely as structurally complex as the real thing. […]
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