Imagine getting surgery without ever being cut open. Researchers at Duke University and Harvard Medical School have successfully demonstrated a proof of concept in new research published Thursday in Science using a 3D printer that uses ultrasound to print biomaterials inside an organ.
Growing up, Junjie Yao, a bioengineer at Duke University and one of the primary investigators of the study, had heard stories about scientists coming up with great ideas over coffee or while chatting in the break room, but he never thought that would happen to him. About three years ago, Yao, and his co-primary investigator Yu Shrike Zhang, who have been friends and collaborators since their grad school days, were talking casually at an industry conference about big problems in their field. This included how to break the limit of bioprinting technologies used to create things like engineered tissue, flexible electronics, or medical devices.
But they kept running into the same problem: Most of these 3D printing technologies used light to convert the ink into a solid structure and they needed to be printed outside or on a surface. And in the case of manufacturing something meant to be minimally invasive, the researchers thought this was impossible.
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