Cross section of bioprinted human liver tissue showing hepatocytes (blue nuclei), endothelial cells (red), and hepatic stellate cells (green). (Courtesy Organovo Holdings Inc.)
The discovery that living tissues could be built up using a 3-D printer will soon revolutionize many fields of medicine.
Already, startup Organovo Holdings Inc. (San Diego, CA), one of MD+DI's “5 Startups Poised to Change MedTech Forever” is doing just that. The firm delivered the first sample of its 3-D bioprinted liver tissue on January 29, more than two months ahead of its target date.
“This is an important milestone for Organovo R&D,” said Sharon Presnell, PhD, Organovo's chief technology officer and executive vice president of R&D. “In developing these tissues, we have gone through a careful set of research studies involving many individual tissues, and greatly increased our ability to produce them.”
Building up the tissues in 3-D offers many benefits for laboratories over the conventional 2-D monocultures currently in use. Organovo says that by restoring the 3-D architecture of the tissue and building the tissue with multiple cell types, its 3-D bioprinting enables re-establishment of in vivo-like form and function.
Organovo's 3-D bioprinted liver tissues exhibit tissue-like cellular density with multilayered architecture. They function like natural liver tissue, with stable albumin production for over 40 days, fibrinogen and transferrin production, and inducible enzymatic activities. Cholesterol biosynthesis has been demonstrated for the first time in a multi-cellular 3D human liver system in vitro. And they respond to hepatotoxic insults from acetaminophen, acetaminophen in combination with ethanol, and diclofenac.
These strips of 3-D bioprinted tissue will be sold to drug companies to be used to test the toxicity of potential new drug candidates. The company also anticipates entering the preclinical toxicology testing services market itself, in addition to selling its liver tissues.
But that's not all! Organovo is also working to perfect its 3-D bioprinting of breast and kidney tissues. In a phone interview with Bloomberg's Elizabeth Lopatto, Keith Murphy. Organovo CEO, said that the company will present data on test tissues for breast cancer and healthy kidneys by March 2015. That will lay the groundwork, Murphy says, for tissue transplants, and eventually organ transplants, using 3-D printed cells.
Organovo says its supplemental tissue therapies could come in forms of tubes, patches, or organoids. These they are working toward today. Larger replacement tissues remain a future goal. However, the insights the company gains through the development of supplemental tissue therapies today can serve as guideposts for the development of functional organ replacements tomorrow.
Stephen Levy is a contributor to Qmed and MPMN.
