In a landmark moment for medicine, a 3D-printed organ has successfully been transplanted into a patient for the first time ever. Now, the patient in Korea is recovering with her new windpipe, which is partly made from another person’s stem cells.
A team of scientists, doctors and engineers became the first people to perform a 3D-printed windpipe transplant at Seoul St Mary’s Hospital in 2023. The patient is a female in her 50s who lost part of her windpipe (also known as a trachea) after having surgery to remove thyroid cancer.
3D-printed bones and foods are just some of the future technology that have already seen some success – but organs are new territory.
What is the 3D-printed windpipe made of?
Fundamentally, the patient’s new organ is built with cartilage and mucosal lining (the moist lining that you get in some of your organs and body cavities like your lungs and nose).
The scientists obtained nasal stem cells and cartilage cells from other patients to create these elements – cells which were discarded during a procedure to treat nasal congestion and from a nasal septum surgery.
But the 3D-printed windpipe also contains polycaprolactone (PCL) for structural support, as well as bio-ink. Rather than the ink you might see in your printer at home, bio-ink carries the living cells needed to create living tissue in 3D-bioprinting.
The PCL has an expiry date, however. Being biodegradable, it is expected to last only five years. However, the scientists hope that during this time, the artificial organ will help the patient’s body regenerate her own trachea.
Existing treatments following trachea removal, the hospital says, cannot restore the original organ – and are also complicated and dangerous. This breakthrough could revolutionise treatment for patients with thyroid cancer, congenital anomalies, or trauma to the windpipe.
One of the procedure's major breakthroughs is that the patient did not require any immunosuppressants. And, six months after the operation, the windpipe is not only healing well but new blood vessels are starting to form.
The study is currently being peer-reviewed for potential publication in a scientific journal.
How do you 3D-print a windpipe?
A windpipe needs to be patient-specific in its size and dimensions. First, the team collected the patient’s CT and MRI data so they could design it to fit perfectly. In this case, the windpipe had to be less than 5cm (2 inches) long.
It took less than two weeks to print and was transplanted into the patient in a half-day surgery.
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The procedure is a result of the collaboration between the Catholic University of Korea and Gachon University, as well as the biomedical engineering company that made the printer, T&R Biofab.
It brings together 20 years of research, with the earliest lab studies dating back to 2004. During this time, the lead researchers collected lab data, including from tests on animals including beagles. According to T&R Biofab, this supporting data was necessary for approval by the regulating body.
T&R Biofab designed the printer to specialise in printing hollow tubular structures, with high-precision technology to enable scientists to create such a personalised organ.
Not just tailored to the patient, though, the bespoke printer was designed specifically for Seoul St Mary’s Hospital. Sadly, this means it is not a printer that just anyone – including other hospitals – could currently plug in and use, but T&R Biofab may expand its production in the future.
"While it's too soon to say that 3D-bioprinting could be the solution for the current shortage of organs for transplantation, it definitely increases the hopes to partially solve the issue for some organs or some specific indications, or at least fill the gap between classic medical devices and organ transplants," Dr Paulo Marinho, head of scientific strategy at T&R Biofab, told BBC Science Focus.
"An optimistic example of that is our ongoing research published in Nature Communications in 2019, where we printed stem cell-derived heart patches to assist the infarcted heart of rats. This is a clear tangible example of where this technology might lead in the not so distant future."
Additional reporting by Thomas Ling.
About our expert
Dr Paulo Marinho is the head of scientific strategy at T&R Biofab. After completing his PhD in chemical engineering at the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, he was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Sanford Consortium for Regenerative Medicine, USA, before joining T&R Biofab.
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