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New Medical Research shows that 3-D printing can be used to reproduce human cells by bio-printing blood vessels and human tissue. Medical Research has shown that 3-D printing of the tissue can be a new invasive treatment for individuals that need rapid acting, life-saving treatment and the most cost effective option. There are a variety of different types of 3-D printers. However, with each 3-D printer they each produce their own unique and distinct objects. The usage of each 3-D printer differs from one another. In the terms of bio-printing its provides many benefits such as providing the production of medication, or a tissue. Furthermore 3-D printing can be also used for educational purposes, such as adding 3-D printing to the curriculum …show more content…

As a result, a researcher from Wake Forest University named Professor Anthony Atala did a TED talk in 2011 on a demonstration on how to print a living human kidney, in which after the demonstration caused confusion in the crowd due to the research being in the early research stage and has never been previously used for a viable organ transplant (Lipson and Kurman 7). The TED talk demonstration was the world’s first introduction to the use of bio-printing viable organs for possible transplantation. In consideration of the TED talk, researchers have begun to harvest stem cells to 3-D print, in hopes to integrate with the existing tissue to produce viable organs and other body parts (Griggs 8). The bio-printing process has begun to have some success with clinical trials. In 2013, a surgeon named Doctor Paolo Macchiarini had a patient that is a 2-year old girl named Hannah from Illinois, who was born without a trachea (Griggs 9). Dr. Macchiarini created a bio-printed trachea from Hannah’s own stem cells and bone marrow, after in which he performed the 9-hour operation (Griggs 9). As a result, Dr. Macchiarini allowed Hannah to breath on her own and he will monitor her throughout her life, but for right now she is responding well to the transplant (Sifferlin 2). In result, bio-printing may begin to save and improve a lot of individuals’ life. Since, each day 18 people die in the …show more content…

According to Spiewak, the advantages of bio-printing are the ability to integrate vascularization, ability to generate tissue, controlled delivery of growth genes, precise patterning of cells, ability to co-culture multiple cell types locally, enables fabrication of anatomically correct shapes, along with allowing fabrication of porous structures (18). On the flip side, some ethical concerns that many individuals may have on research are the cost, production control, complications, and the organs made with nonhuman cells (Griggs 20). Individuals may believe that bio-printing may be expensive and only will qualify for the wealthy. However, that can’t be determined since the medical research of bio-printing organs is still in the beginning stage and is years of a way of production of a viable organ for transplantation. Sifferlin notes Dr. Macchiarini research that “he plans to conduct a clinical trial to properly assess the risks and benefits of the procedure, and document how bodies react to the transplanted devices. Hopefully those trials will show that it's possible to regenerate not just organs but hope as well.” (13.) Every major surgery of course comes with a risk; however, every individual has the right to take on the risk if they please. Most individual will not be concerned with the ethical concerns, since saving human life surely outweighs every

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