Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: NicknamedBob

It doesn't seem like an inkjet can print small enough to get down to the cellular level. Even if it can, can it get down to the mitochondria level?


7 posted on 03/04/2007 9:30:25 AM PST by RightWhale (300 miles north of Big Wild Life)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies ]


To: RightWhale

In Bob's world, definitely.


8 posted on 03/04/2007 9:38:33 AM PST by MHGinTN (If you've had life support. Promote life support for others.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]

To: RightWhale; MHGinTN
"It doesn't seem like an inkjet can print small enough to get down to the cellular level. Even if it can, can it get down to the mitochondria level?"

You'd need true nano-assemblers to do sub-cellular work. The ink-jet printer pulses out whole cells, laying them down in a computer controlled pattern.

I've seen film where a heart valve was produced on a dissolvable scaffold.

Picture tiny reservoirs or tubes leading to such reservoirs, isolated within the inkjet cartridge as colors usually are. Theoretically, one could lay down muscle, fat, bone, or blood vessel cells in specified patterns.

What it would take to scale this up to the ability to manufacture an organ is an exercise for the imagination.

My imagination says it may have to be done in a supportive oxygenated saline solution to keep the first layers alive while the rest of the structure is developed.

9 posted on 03/04/2007 10:19:58 AM PST by NicknamedBob (I know where I have gone wrong, and I can cite it, chapter and verse.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson