Now speaking of 3D printing, it seems that it is no longer a surprising thing. There are news reports that a research team used 3D printers to print out certain objects, and 3D printing organs are the most common.

Traditional 3D printing of human organs needless to say, but what if you move a 3D printer into space and print human organs in space? This is what this is going to be told today.

A few days ago, Russian “Energy” Rocket Space Company (RKK Energia) issued a message saying that they will send 3D printers for printing human tissues and organs to the International Space Station this fall. With this equipment, astronauts will try 3D in space environment for the first time. Print samples of human cartilage tissue and rodent thyroid gland.

In addition, this 3D printing device can also help to study the impact of the cosmic environment on long-distance life, which is of great significance to the development of space science. It is understood that the average life of a 3D printer sent to space is about 5 years. After the service life is reached, the 3D printer will be sent back to the earth for continued use.

According to the relevant personnel of the Russian "Energy" Rocket Space Company, because space is a weightless environment, the 3D printer does not have any moving parts, and the biological material will "grow" out of the device under the action of a strong magnetic field.

This technology has two distinct advantages: one is to obtain a donor organ suitable for transplantation without waiting, and the other is to automatically solve the survival rate problem. However, if this set of 3D printing equipment sent into space is placed on the earth, its energy consumption will be equivalent to the consumption of a town, and it is really "big hand"!

In fact, the only purpose of 3D printing organs is to realize human transplants one day, solve the problem of human organ shortage, and help those who need organ transplants to regain their hopes.

In 2014, researchers successfully “printed” cartilage tissue; in 2015, people successfully “printed” kidney tissue for medical research; and in 2016, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina, USA The students succeeded in cultivating the human body parts using complex custom 3D printers and transplanted them into animals to grow into functional tissues, proving that 3D printed organs can survive in life.

Although the research on 3D printing organs is endless, it has not yet been applied to human body. Because the structure of the human body is complicated, even if only a small skin has multiple functions, if you want to transplant foreign organs into the human body, it is safe. The problem is the top priority.

However, I believe that with the deepening of research, 3D printing organs will be applied to the human body one day in the future for the benefit of all mankind.