Major Progress in Bioengineering: 3D Printed Ear Successfully Transplanted For The First Time

According to the New York Times website, a regenerative medicine company in the United States announced earlier this month that it had successfully transplanted a 3D-printed ear made from her own cells to a 20-year-old woman who was born with a deformed right ear. This is the first clinical trial to apply 3D technology in the medical field. This is an astonishing advance in the field of biological tissue engineering, according to multiple independent experts.

The US 3D Biomedical Company said the shape of the new ear printed exactly matched the woman's left ear. The new ear, which was transplanted in March, regrows cartilage tissue and has the look and texture of a natural ear, the company said.

"It's absolutely significant," said Adam Feinberg, a professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Dr. Feinberg himself is not affiliated with 3D Biomedical, he is another company Co-founder of Fluids, a regenerative medicine company that also uses 3D printing technology. "It shows that it's no longer a question of whether this technology is feasible, but a question of when," he said.

3D Biomedical announced the results of the woman's reconstructive surgery in a press release. But the company did not publicly disclose the technical details of the surgery, citing patent rights. Federal regulators have previously evaluated the experimental design and set strict manufacturing standards, and the data will be published in a medical journal after the study is complete, the company said.

The 11-patient clinical trial is still ongoing, and there is a potential for graft failure or unanticipated complications. But many doctors and company executives say rejection of the new ear is unlikely given the cells used are derived from the patient's own tissue.

This success was seven years in the making. Recently, academia has made a number of breakthroughs in the exploration of organ transplantation. In January, surgeons in Maryland transplanted a genetically modified pig heart into a 57-year-old man with a heart attack, extending his life by two months.

United Therapeutics provided transgenic pigs for the above-mentioned heart transplant. A spokesman for the company said they are also experimenting with 3D printing lungs for transplants. Scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology reported last September that they had printed a network of blood vessels necessary to supply blood to implanted tissues.

Given that the implanted ear used a small clump of cell lines derived from the woman's own deformed ear, it appears to be the first known example of 3D printing a living tissue preparation.

Still, Dr Feinberg said, the outer ear is a relatively simple appendage that is not so much functional as it is for aesthetics. He warns that the road to 3D printing solid organs — such as livers, kidneys, hearts and lungs — is still a long way off: “Even from printing an ear to printing an intervertebral disc would be a big leap. If it succeeds, the dream will be closer to reality.”