QUEENS, N.Y. — In a transplant first, a 20-year-old woman, born with a misshapen ear, recently received a new one constructed from her own living cells and 3-D-printed in a laboratory.
Queens, New York-based 3DBio Therapeutics, a Cornell University-incubated startup, manufactured the ear as a mirror replica of the woman’s other ear, according to a Thursday news release announcing the successful March transplantation.
👂Have you heard about this? Check out this astonishing #BME success: https://t.co/CYG1oUvoi3
— Biomedical Engineering Society (@BMESociety) June 2, 2022
Dr. Anthony Atala, the director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, called the medical advance a “big milestone,” NBC News reported.
“Ears have been implanted by hand. It’s now using a printer, which helps automate the process, which is important for the field,” Atala told the network.
According to the Cornell Chronicle, the “bioengineered breakthrough” could ultimately improve the lives of roughly 1,500 U.S. children born each year with microtia, a congenital ear deformity,. Moreover, the biomedical marvel could “eventually lead to tissue implants for treating other conditions and traumatic injuries, reconstructive and regenerative therapy, and possibly even the biomanufacture of whole organs,” the newspaper reported.
Meanwhile, the new ear will continue to regenerate cartilage tissue, giving it the texture and appearance of a natural ear, the company stated.
“It’s definitely a big deal,” Adam Feinberg, a professor of biomedical engineering and materials science and engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, told The New York Times.
Feinberg, who is not affiliated with 3DBio, is a co-founder of FluidForm, a regenerative medicine company that also uses 3-D printing, the newspaper reported.
“It shows this technology is not an ‘if’ anymore, but a ‘when,’” he added.
Although 3DBio did not publicly disclose the technical details of its 11-subject clinical trial, citing proprietary issues, the company confirmed that federal regulators reviewed the trial design and set strict manufacturing standards, the Times reported.
Read a more detailed explanation of the clinical trial, potential applications for its successes and other recent gains in 3-D printed transplant technology in the Times.
Learn more about 3DBio Therapeutics via the Chronicle.
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