Client: bild der wissenschaft, Konradin Mediengruppe
Magazine: Issue 6 2015
Organ tissue from the 3D printer
Could entire organs such as the liver, kidneys, skin, heart or lungs one day be recreated using a 3D printer? This is precisely the question addressed by the magazine bild der wissenschaft in its June issue.
Research into this is currently in full swing and the first organ tissue, for example from the liver, can already be successfully produced using “bio-3D printing”. There are various degrees of difficulty that the scientists have to overcome: The liver, for example, requires three different cell ingredients in order to be printed. And while flat structures such as the skin are still quite easy to implement, hollow organs such as the stomach are much more difficult. The kidney is a really tough nut to crack: in contrast to the liver, it requires not just three, but more than 20 different cell types! The fact that the freshly printed organ tissue then has to be supplied with blood vessels is also still causing the researchers some headaches.
To present this topic in a visually charming way, I made organ chocolates out of modeling clay and presented their production as a slightly different kind of baking. Each organ was given its own paper mold, the cell ingredients of the liver float in colorful test tubes and are then transformed into the finished organ mass by a baking nozzle. Immediately afterwards, the finished livers land on the baking tray. I gave the kidney a blood vessel icing and listed the different categories of organ production in a recipe book.
