bio-fabrication – what shen?

Australian scientists say they have found a way to grow human body parts
using 3D printing technology.
The University of Wollongong’s Centre for Electromaterials Science is opening a
research unit at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital where 3D printing will be used
to reproduce tissue material.
The bio-fabrication unit scientists have already begun animal trials to reproduce
skin, cartilage, arteries and heart valves.
Professor Mark Cook says the process could eventually do away with the need
for organ transplants.
“It’s possible to print devices and structures that can be implanted in human
bodies, and these devices can have cells grown on them so that bodily functions
can be replicated on these very tiny devices,” he said.
“In the future, these sorts of devices will be able to recreate parts of people’s
joints and bones, conceivably, in the future, even organs.”
The Australian technique incorporates the living cells into the actual layered
printing process, with a 95 per cent survival rate for the cells.
Team leaders say they anticipate the new tissues will be cleared for use in
humans within three to five years.
And they say they plan to move on, eventually, to finding ways of using the
technique to print more complicated parts like kidneys and livers.
The centre’s director Professor Gordon Wallace says scientists will be recreating
complete organs in a decade’s time.
“Our ability to print living cells and biopolymers and spatially distribute those in a
3D structure of course sparks the imagination,” he said.”You could see how we could eventually be able to print organs using 3D printing
technology.”

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-03/3d-printers-on-track-to-print-body-pa