3D Printing Saving Lives

Er, no!

As soon as we separate the hope for a brighter future, and marketing from what is achievable today. Those are simple, homogenous structures, like cartilage, trachea or hearth valve. They all need a skeleton structure borrowed from a pig or printed, then populated with your stemcells. In a few weeks or longer we get a functional, homogenous single population. For anything more complex, like growing blood vessels inside of these, there are brave plans. We still are like a man in a blizzard groping: there must be a way to guide the development of the stemcells at various places differently. It must be possible, as the body does it to perfection.

Yet, at this point we are mostly clueless. in 5-10 years we may know more. Oh, I support charging full speed ahead.

I remember an article some years back where a man had a brain tumor that was nearly inoperable since it was deep inside and surrounded by tissue that could not be disturbed without catastrophic results. The surgeons took highly detailed scans of the mans head, then built 3d models of his brain, complete to the smallest details. Then 3d printed a brain (3 times) and performed the operation on the models. The resulting information and modified technique aquired this way allowed the surgeon to perform the actual operation and the man's life was saved. No pun intended, but it blew my mind.

A 100 years ago, the public balked at the idea of electricity and the automobile ever becoming a reality. Now it seems nothing is impossible anymore. If there was one technology that I would put all my trust in, it would be 3D printing.

Last I heard was that they can print a functinal gun with 3D printer. How to do it was posted on the internet.

Fancy something that does not pop up at the scanner in the airport?

It will not always save lives!