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MU-Led Scientists Press Research in Organ 'Printing'

Posted on: Tuesday, 13 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Sep. 10--The National Science Foundation has awarded nearly $5 million to a University of Missouri-Columbia professor to study a means of regenerative cell reproduction that could one day help eliminate the need for people to be placed on long waiting lists for organ transplants.

Gabor Forgacs' team of scientists is researching biological self-assembly, the process in which individual cells assemble into complex organs from an almost-spherical egg.

"A spherical object is very boring," said Forgacs, a professor of biological physics. "And then you look in the mirror in 20-some years, and you see that you are anything but spherical."

Forgacs' team -- composed of faculty from MU, the University of South Carolina, New York Medical College and the University of Utah -- will focus on how the heart and limbs develop. If researchers can decipher what cues are needed for cells to grow, it will be the first step toward mastering a process called organ printing.

The project is titled "Understanding and Employing Tissue Self-Assembly," a reference to what Forgacs calls the underlying process of any living organism's development. Unlocking the secrets of that process might allow scientists to make strides in regenerative medicine, including a new process that "prints" organs from a patient's cells.

"The organ-printing component, which is no doubt very spectacular, is the 'Employing' part of the title," Forgacs said. "We will hopefully come up with some fundamental principles of this self-organization."

The process requires "bio-ink," which is made of multicellular spheres that are then placed in a "bio-printer," a machine that can print three-dimensional biological structures on cellular "scaffolds," which Forgacs described as "bio-paper."

"To some extent, that does sound like science fiction, but not entirely because such things have happened," Forgacs said.

In fact, Forgacs and his team have been printing cellular tubes and cellular sheets for the past year. In April, they printed a 3-by-3-millimeter sheet of chicken heart cells that was almost a half-millimeter thick.

"They all want to beat by themselves, but that's not good," Forgacs said of the printed cells. "In the heart, the cells have to beat in synchrony."

Four days after the team printed its sheet, the cells started to beat together.

"It's just amazing," Forgacs said. "So the system during the four days self-organizes itself into a single structure, which beats in synchrony."

Although the grant he just received doesn't call for Forgacs to implement organ printing in animals, he is in the process of submitting a preliminary proposal to another foundation that would call for that.

The use of organ printing for treating animals would be a step toward treatment of humans.

"I think anything that can advance our abilities to treat injuries is a good thing," said Elizabeth Hussey, a veterinarian at Horton Animal Hospital. "I'm not really looking for this to turn veterinary medicine around in the next few years."

Forgacs acknowledged the research won't be an overnight success.

"This is something that every human being can understand," Forgacs said. "Well, maybe not understand the details but appreciate because this is something that concerns everybody.

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Source: Columbia Daily Tribune

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