The human heart is an amazing organ, capable of working around the clock without a break. Its one frailty is that, when its special cardiac muscle tissue becomes damaged, it cannot repair itself in the same way that your other muscles can. This is why heart disease is such a big problem, and why recent developments coming to us from the Carnegie Mellon University College of Engineering are such a big deal.
Through the use of a simple, commercial 3D printer, a team from Carnegie Mellon was able to construct a model of a human heart out of collagen and fibrin. Printing with such materials has historically been difficult, due to their fragility, but the team devised a support gel that served to hold the structure in place as it was printed. This gel would then melt away when the model heart was brought to body temperature.
The next step in this process is to inject this structure with real heart cells, converting the model into a functional human organ. If successful, their techniques could change the lives of many people awaiting heart transplants.
