Engineers from the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute (CII) in Louisville, Kentucky, claim they will be able to use 3D printersto build a fully functional human heart within a decade.
Many research groups around the world are already working on developing biomedical 3D printing, whether for the human heart or other organs, such as the lungs, liver, kidneys and so on.
At this point, artificial human hearts can only be made in bioreactors, by placing the patient's stem cells on a heart scaffold, "cleansed" of its old cells. However, the CII researchers want to be able to produce organs that are fully capable of replacing the patient's, without the fear of organ rejection.
CCI Director Dr Stuart Williams believes the Institute is only 10 years away from perfecting this new technology. His team, and others, are already receiving significant support, as everyone knows how important such a discovery is.
"America put a man on the moon in less than a decade. I said a whole decade to give some leeway," Williams said. Heart disease is now the number one cause of death in the United States, according to research.
