Biological 3D printing technology is a frontier field that scientists from all over the world are vying for research. This technology is called a key medical project that is expected to break the limit of human lifespan. It is also something that various pharmaceutical giants and biotechnology laboratories are competing to conquer.
advanced technology.
Although this technology is very hot, there are many laboratory research institutions and pharmaceutical giants involved in research in this area, and a series of so-called laboratory results have appeared, but they are just results. No one has ever announced that they have successfully conquered this technology.
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And this time Wu Hao actually announced this news at a hugely influential annual press conference. How could he not arouse everyone's attention and interest?
Wu Hao, on the other hand, smiled and continued to introduce: "There are two key technical problems in bio-3D printing technology. First, you must have a printing machine that can perform bio-3D printing. This is not like our ordinary printers and 3D printers.
It is a special medical printer based on biological cells.
There are currently no successful cases of this kind of printer in the world, so we can only explore it ourselves, refer to the relevant principles of other existing printers, and conduct continuous experiments.
How to print biological cells into living and functional organs and tissues is a problem we have been researching. Biological cells are not ordinary printing consumables, they are dynamic. How to make these dynamic cells spliced together in an orderly manner?
And form functional active organ tissues.
There are too many technical problems that need to be solved. This is just like when we use a 3D printer to print objects, we need consumables, and then melt these consumables through high temperature, and then spray them out from a special printing nozzle. Depending on the spatial location,
Gradually add up, and finally print out the designed object.
The principle of a light-curing 3D printer is actually the same as that of a stacked printer, except that it uses resin material, and then uses the principle of ultraviolet light curing to solidify the resin at the required location, and finally prints out the required object.
As for our biological 3D printer, we must refer to the advantages and disadvantages of these two technologies and finally choose a technical method suitable for biological cell printing.
In the end, after our continuous research and experimental exploration of the two printing methods, we chose the more suitable stacking printing technology to apply to biological 3D printing technology.
And refer to the principles of ordinary 3D stacking printers to develop our own biological 3D printer."
Having said this, Wu Hao paused for a moment, then took a breath, and then continued: "Although the technical principle of a 3D printer is very simple, it is nothing more than using three-dimensional space coordinates to stack filaments and finally form the required object.
shape.
But if you want to print a perfect enough object, you must require the printer to have sufficient printing accuracy. The printing accuracy determines how delicate and accurate the object is. Whether it can be printed as designed, the printed object will be delicate and shiny. If the printing accuracy
If it is not enough, the printed object will be very rough, and there may even be partial missing, deformation, adhesion of stacked materials, etc.”
"As we all know, the organs and tissues in our body are very precise and are composed of countless various body cells arranged in an orderly manner. If the printing accuracy of the biological 3D printer is not enough, then it will not be possible to print a healthy and sound body.
Active organ tissue.
As we all know, the somatic cells that make up our human body are very small, only a few microns or tens of microns, and the largest ones are only one or two hundred microns. This also causes these cells to be very small. What is the concept? 1 micron is equal to 0.001 mm.
1000 microns is equal to one millimeter. The largest cell is only 100 or 200 microns, which is only 0.2 millimeters. It is almost invisible to our naked eyes.
If you want to use these biological cells to print out the required organs and tissues, the accuracy of the printer is very high. In other words, the printing accuracy of this printer must be at least higher than the diameter of a single somatic cell, which is 0.001 mm.
Although humans have already manufactured nanometer-level chips, in terms of biological cell printing, this is definitely a cutting-edge technology field, and few people have made breakthroughs.
If the printing accuracy is sufficient, the next thing to solve is how to develop a printing nozzle that can print organs and tissues. This is the core key of the entire biological 3D printer.
How to use these cells with diameters of several microns and tens of microns to print organs and tissues requires a special biological cell printing nozzle. This nozzle must be very thin so that it can accommodate these cells of tens of microns and several microns in an orderly manner.
pass.
Because these cells vary in size, a single printing nozzle cannot do the job. Therefore, the entire biological 3D printer requires six to ten printing nozzles of different specifications, ranging from ultra-fine nozzles of a few microns to more than ten microns.
The nozzles are tens of microns, one or two hundred microns. Moreover, these somatic cells have different shapes, such as spherical, square, columnar, etc., so different styles of nozzles are needed to accommodate these somatic cells.
These printing nozzles will select and print based on preset printing data, and print cells of different sizes and shapes according to relevant requirements. This not only has extremely demanding requirements for the intelligent control system of the entire biological 3D printer, but also
There are also very strict requirements on printing accuracy, the cooperation between these different specifications of printing nozzles, etc.
Secondly, there is another issue that cannot be ignored, that is, the consumables we use for printing are all cells. These cells are originally full of vitality. How to store these somatic cells, and then how to make them smoothly print out with the nozzle, and these cells themselves cannot
Congestion, extrusion, necrosis, etc. will occur. This places very high requirements on the entire consumable supply system of this biological 3D printer.
How to preserve these somatic cells is also a headache for our scientific research and technical experts, because these cells are very fragile and may be damaged if you are not careful. Moreover, the life span of these cells is relatively short. How to control the life activities of these cells and control them?
Splitting, differentiation, inheritance, and mutation are also extremely difficult technical problems.
So this requires a special storage device to store and protect these cells, and transport them to the printing nozzle safely and smoothly. After our technical experts continued to conduct research and experiments, we finally developed a liquid storage technology
This problem was successfully solved.
The so-called liquid storage technology refers to dissolving these biological cells into a special preservation solution. This preservation solution can maintain the activity of these biological cells, and because the cells are surrounded by liquid, they are not easily squeezed.
It is also not easy to have problems such as congestion during the transportation process.”