HeLa Cells Now Used in 3D Bioprinting: the continuing story of Henrietta Lacks

For people who don't know what HeLa is, HeLa stands for Henrietta Lacks, who donated cells from her cancerous cervix in the the early 1950s.  These cells were one of the first surviving cell cultures, and became integral to discovering many things about cells, cancer, and human bodies. The HeLa cells were the most common cells for experiments using human cells for many years. They are somewhat controversial because she was not aware of her donation (no informed consent) and her family didn't make any money from the sale of cells.

American and Chinese researchers used her cells to create a three dimensional model of a tumor, used to test new drugs in a more realistic way than the traditional single-layer models. the researcher found that around 90% of the cells remained viable after being printed, and that the 3D model was more realistic than the single layer one.

Here is an article with more information on this story and here is an earlier blog post about bioprinting.  Or, click the image above to read a February 2002 NPR article about the book.

- By Jane (7th grade)

7Th Graders Skype with Keith Murphy of Organovo!

** This post is still under construction, but I wanted to get the news up to share with all of you at 3D Printer World Expo, but it's been a busy week at school and there was no time to fine-tune (yet!).  Please check back soon. Feel free to follow us by email or Facebook! **

On Monday, January 27th, my 7th graders were able to Skype with Keith Murphy, CEO or Organovo.  I heard Keith talk at Inside 3D Printing in San Jose and kept thinking, "I wish my students could hear this!'  As you know, we are big fans of 3D printing and every year we spend time learning about cells.  After his talk, I tracked him down and asked him to take a photo (right). :)  And, as I do with pretty much everyone I meet who is working in professional fields in content areas that I teach, I asked if he would be willing to skype my classroom.  To my surprise and delight, he followed up and we were able to schedule a session!

My kids were excited and ready.  Keith Murphy explained the basics, and my students were surprised to learn that, contrary to what the media would like us to believe, we are nowhere close to printing whole organs.  He explained about the mini-livers and how they are used with drug testing. Then he took their questions.  There is always a moment a a teacher where you hold your breath and hope for the best, but the kids were awesome!  Some of their questions included:

How long does it take to print a blood vessel?

Where do you get the cells?

Are there any companies looking to 3D print skin to replace animal testing for cosmetics?


[more to come]

In this photo, Keith Murphy explains about collagen.

Afterwards, students say: [add]


To learn more about Organovo, here is a presentation by Sharon Presnell, Ph.D., Chief Technology Officer & EVP of Research & Development

at the 2013 Stem Cell Meeting on the Mesa.

Algaerium Bioprinter

Japanese designer Marin Sawa's research uses algae in new and different ways.  Her current project is called a "Algaerium Bioprinter" and can print with so-called superfoods like Chlorella, Spirulina, and Haematococcus.  By the way, science students, these are all names of genus taxa -  Chlorella (in the Protist Kingdom),  Spirulina (in the Bacteria Kingdom), and Haematococcus (Plant Kingdom, or some scientists call it by different names, including Viridiplantae.)  And, I learned that Haematococcus is responsible for the red color that sometimes is found at the bottom of dried-out bird baths!

But I digress...

So, designer Marin Sawa is creating this bioprinter as part of her doctoral research at Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design in London (a school known for pushing the boundaries of arts, design and performance) and wants to adapt industrial algae farming technology for domestic use.  (Although a growing segment of the population is already trying algae farming at home!)  She hopes to find new ways for consuming health food supplements, and is currently developing the technology to print algal-based energy devices as well as filtering devices.  See more incredible photos here.

Maybe she should meet artists Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta?

3D printed airway saves baby

Kaiba Gionfriddo was born with a condition called bronchial malacia, a condition in which the walls of the trachea collapse.  From the time he was 6 weeks until the time he was 3 months, he was in the hospital.  His mother says they had to do CPR on him EVERY DAY.

Kaiba's doctors contacted Dr. Glenn Green, who then got emergency permission from the Food and Drug Administration to do a special procedure which, before Kaiba, had only been tried on animals. Luckily for everyone involved, the surgery was a sucess!

"It's magical to me," said Dr. Glenn Green, an associate professor of pediatric otolaryngology at the University of Michigan who implanted the splint in Kaiba. "We're talking about taking dust and using it to build body parts."knew they had to come up with something, or the alternative would be a life on a ventilator.  

The doctors used a laser 3D printer to create a splint to hold open the baby's collapsing airway.  It was a few centimeters long and 8 millimeters wide and made of polycaprolactone or PCL.

When a splint is created using PCL, it becomes a sort of biological placeholder, propping up structures while the body heals around it.

Kaiba is now 20 months old and breathing on his own.  (see cute pic of him here)  Doctors say it will take the implant 3 years to degrade and then, presumably, the trachea will continue growing normally.

It's worth reading the whole article.  Or, you can read the published paper in the New England Journal of Medicine, "Bioresorbable Airway Splint Created with a Three-Dimensional Printer"!

From Figure 1 in the publication...

Panel A shows the airway in expiration before placement of the splint; the image was reformatted with minimum-intensity projection. Panel B shows the patient-specific computed tomography–based design of the splint (red). Panel C shows an image-based three-dimensional printed cast of the patient's airway without the splint in place, and Panel D shows the cast with the splint in place.



UPDATED 6.26.13  This University of Michigan Health Systems article has more detail on this story - well worth a read.  It also includes this video:

Th article clarified for me that the splint was "sewn around Kaiba’s airway to expand the bronchus and give it a skeleton to aid proper growth. Over about three years, the splint will be reabsorbed by the body."

“The material we used is a nice choice for this. It takes about two to three years for the trachea to remodel and grow into a healthy state, and that’s about how long this material will take to dissolve into the body,” says Hollister.

This article also states that severe tracheobronchomalacia is rare: Of the 1 in 2,200 babies born with tracheomalacia, most grow out of it by age 2 or 3, although it often is misdiagnosed as asthma that doesn’t respond to treatment. Severe cases, like Kaiba’s, are about 10 percent of that number.

If you are interested, the University of Michigan Pediatric Medical Device Consortium (M-PED) created a 28-minute video entitled "Innovative Pediatric Manufacturing: Strategies & Solutions - A Guide To Bringing Your Device To Market" which discusses FDA requirements for manufacturing medical devices for children (and adults).

Organovo and Bioprinting

Bioprinting is printing cells on "biopaper" made of collagen. The cells come out in a matrix of gel that protects them as they print. The bioink (cells) are printed in groups of thousands of cells

Diagram from ExplainingTheFuture.com

Eventually, we will be able to print organs that won't be rejected by bodies, because they will be made of the same cells as the rest of the body. This would be a huge development for medicine because huge numbers of people  are on waiting lists for organs without enough donors.

An Interview with Mike Renard of Organovo ( A 3D printing company) on Bioprinting

 - blog post by starspatteredsky

UPDATE:  An excellent, comprehensive article on this subject was (2D!) printed in the August 2013 issue of Popular Science.  Read more here.