Bioprinting turns reliable alternative for testing new drugs

THE dream of printing a human organ like a liver or a heart has long captivated the scientific community, especially as thousands of people lose their lives each year while waiting for a suitable donor.

- UNNIKRISHNAN S @T'Puram

For liver patients, the stakes are particularly high because their condition often leaves very little room for delay.

Today, that hope is taking shape in specialised laboratories where researchers are working on a modern medical miracle - using 3D bioprinting to build tissues that look and act like the real thing. Instead of waiting for a donor, the process begins with a digital blueprint of the organ.

This design is fed into a printer loaded not with plastic or ink, but with "bio-ink", a sophisticated mixture of a patient's living cells and supportive materials. Guided by the digital map, the printer deposits this material layer by layer. What emerges is not yet a complete, pulsating organ, but a living scaffold where cells can grow, communicate, and eventually begin to function as a biological unit.