Now this... is SCIENCE!!
Scientist turns to ink-jet printer for a new heart
A Japanese scientist, a doctor who treats children with heart failure, had an epiphany - what if we could build organs, cell-by-cell, using the basic equivalent of an ink-jet printer? Dr. Makoto Nakamura thinks this'd be an awesome idea, and so do I....One day Nakamura found that droplets from inkjet printers were about the same size as human cells, which are as small as 10 micrometres in diametre each, or one-100th of a millimetre.
He bought a home-use Seiko Epson printer in 2002 and tried to eject cells with it. But the inkjet nozzle got clogged.
He rang up the company's customer service, telling the operator that he wanted to print cells, an idea she politely turned down.
Nakamura did not give up and eventually reached an Epson official who showed interest and agreed to give him technical support.
In 2003, Nakamura confirmed that cells survived even after the printing process, becoming one of the first researchers in the world to unveil a 3D structure with real living cells using inkjet technology.
A Japanese scientist, a doctor who treats children with heart failure, had an epiphany - what if we could build organs, cell-by-cell, using the basic equivalent of an ink-jet printer? Dr. Makoto Nakamura thinks this'd be an awesome idea, and so do I....One day Nakamura found that droplets from inkjet printers were about the same size as human cells, which are as small as 10 micrometres in diametre each, or one-100th of a millimetre.
He bought a home-use Seiko Epson printer in 2002 and tried to eject cells with it. But the inkjet nozzle got clogged.
He rang up the company's customer service, telling the operator that he wanted to print cells, an idea she politely turned down.
Nakamura did not give up and eventually reached an Epson official who showed interest and agreed to give him technical support.
In 2003, Nakamura confirmed that cells survived even after the printing process, becoming one of the first researchers in the world to unveil a 3D structure with real living cells using inkjet technology.