3D printer to replicate anatomy

Researchers in the Computational Synthesis Laboratory at Cornell University are working on a 3D printer which will print body parts - all the different tissues included - if you lose a finger or ear, they'll just print you a new one, according to PC World.

Over the past few years, 3D printers have taken off and now 3D printers can print a variety of materials; everything from plastic flutes to metal/plastic cars.

People can even get 3D printed titanium parts on-demand. But Dr Hod Lipson and his group of rogue researchers at Cornell hope to start printing biological body parts soon enough.

Unthinkable says Lipson demonstrated how a 3D printer could be used to create an ear at the annual meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science in Washington DC.

Using silicon gel instead of the real cells, which would normally be used in research of this nature, a scan of a real ear a new one was created within half an hour.

According to Seattle PI, someday, we may all get our bodies scanned and information kept on file in case we needed a new part.

“Cells from you would be harvested, incubated, cultured and then the inks prepared to re-fabricate the part that is missing or broken,” Lipson says. “If I had to guess, I would say that in 20 years this technology will be mainstream.”