3D Printing Human Body Parts

3D-Printing Human Body Parts    By Keith Kirkpatrick 



Communications of the ACM, Vol. 60 No. 10, Pages 15-17 

The advent of three-dimensional (3D) printing is already yielding benefits in many fields by improving the speed and efficiency of product development, prototyping, and manufacturing, while also enabling true on-off customization to suit individual needs. While this is certainly a boon for manufacturers, 3D printing holds even greater promise when considering the possibilities for creating body parts or tissues to replace or repair organs or limbs that have worn out, become damaged, or have been lost to due injury or disease.

Indeed, significant ongoing research is being conducted at the university level into the use of 3D printing to create a variety of replacement parts for aspects of the human anatomy. .... "