3D Printing Has Brought a Dinosaur to Life

No, you’re not dreaming: in a few years’ time, dinosaurs could well be sharing our everyday lives… Thanks to 3D printing! A team of researchers from the University of Isla Nublar have announced that they have succeeded in recreating the embryo of a velociraptor using a 3D bioprinter and a specially developed ink. The ink was formulated from the DNA of a bird, the shoebill to be precise, the only member of the Balaenicipitidae family. The young dinosaur did not survive more than a few days after the successful 3D printing, but the researchers are very optimistic about future trials. Though this scenario sounds like something out of a science-fiction film, it is in fact further proof that bioprinting can work miracles, and that we’re only at the beginning of a major revolution!

Bringing an extinct animal species back to life is nothing new. By 2021, an American start-up, Colossal, had carried out extensive research to bring the woolly mammoth back to life, with potential implications for the fight against climate change. In this specific case, the aim is to study the behavior of dinosaurs and assess the place they might occupy in today’s society. A project which, however, raises a number of ethical questions.

It took researchers at the University of Isla Nublar exactly three years to create a viable embryo.

Birth of a Velociraptor Thanks to 3D Printing

The first stage of the project was to develop the bioprinter – which, according to the press release, was an FFF machine that they adapted to apply ink. The ink is made from living cells harvested from a shoebill, or Balaeniceps rex, an imposing bird with a width of up to 23 cm, a length of 10 cm and a wingspan of up to 2.3 meters. The researchers explain that they have modified the bird’s molecular structure to reproduce the raptor’s DNA pattern, although the details of this procedure remain confidential. In any case, the 3D printer is capable of depositing the cells with extreme precision.