He wants to give us the heart

Tal Dvir is to be noted enthusiasm. With simple slides of the 45-year-old researcher tries to explain what he has been working for years: how the organs in the 3-D printer can be manufactured, in order to make donor organs obsolete. With his Team, the Tel Aviv Professor, for the first time, a heart of a 3-D printer. The prototype has the Size of a rabbit heart, and consists of tissue, blood vessels and chambers.

scientists had succeeded in the previous one, a heart in a 3-D printer to replicate, says Dvir, "but never with cells and blood vessels". In similar experiments, only synthetic materials, or other tissues had been used, but never to the tissue of a patient. This method, he says, in transplants, the risk of an immune response.

The Israeli scientists have Dvirs supervision tissue of a patient fat removed, the number of them used for the development of the "ink" for the 3-D printer. So they created the tissue in a first step, human heart, then you have created a complete heart. The method described by Dvir and his Team in an article in the magazine "Advanced Science".

image: researchers print mini heart made of human tissue

Since 2011, Dvir has his own Team, the married father of a family deals mainly with the Regeneration and the replacement of heart and brain tissue. Now Dvir is suddenly the focus of attention, to date his publications were known in the art. As the Star of the unpretentious occurring, the Israeli with the distinctive bald head is not, however; even during a visit by President Reuven Rivlin in his laboratory, he performed as always, with Jeans and a T-Shirt under the shirt.

Dvir studied at the Ben-Gurion University of biotechnology. Already during his studies, he dealt with the Regeneration and the replacement of the heart. Like so many Israelis, who want to bring in the scientists, it drew him with the doctor title in the bag in the USA. He got a place in the laboratory of Bob Langer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit). In 2011, he received an offer to return to the home of the Tel Aviv University, which established him a private laboratory. There, he worked with students to regenerative medicine methods and the replacement of tissue.

Significant hurdles to the real Transplantation

On the researcher Tal Dvir, many more days and nights waiting in the lab. You would have to behave teach you the printed heart, "as real," says Dvir. The cells could move in together, but pumps are still capable of. Within a year, such a heart will be tested in animal experiments.

To the heart from a 3-D Printer actually for transplants in humans are available, are overcome according to the researchers, there is still considerable hurdles. So, the researchers still do not know how to the smallest blood vessels print. Dvirs view, first of all, simpler organs in the 3-D printer. His Vision: "Maybe in ten years, in the best hospitals around the world, organ printer, and the method to be applied routinely."

(editing Tamedia)

Created: 16.04.2019, 20:37 Uhr