WORLD.- A group of researchers from Freiburg's University Clinic, in Germany is searching to develop a 3D printer that is capable to reproduce bones that contain their own blood vessels. Through this process, implants would have a better assemble with natural tissue that surrounds it.

"This technique would be a decisive improvement, given that it will allow us to gain time," explained Deutsche Welle Günter Finkenzeller, director of the Department for Tissue Engineering Research and Plastic Surgery at Freiburg's Clinic.

"In this case, we would only need to join the blood vessels from the patient with the ones from the printing inside the space between the implant and the adjacent tissue. Consequently, the implant will begin to get irrigated with blood very quickly. Other methods suggest that blood vessels need to emerge from the implant towards an adjacent tissue, this being a process that lasts up to two weeks, too much time for artificial tissue."

The first thing researchers need to figure out is how to make the human body resistant to synthetic materials, which is why they need to develop a printer that works with

water gels provided by human cells.

At the moment, Finkenzeller, Peter Koltay, the project's co-director and his colleagues have received a funding of 460,000 euros from the German Research Foundation (DFG), which will help to finance the work for a period of three years.

With information from RPP

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