American researchers prints a functional 3D brain

Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University have succeeded in printing a functional 3D brain for a mouse! A first in the medical world that shows how bio-printing could advance research especially in the surgical sector. The researchers have collaborated with the American company Organovo to create this organ and successfully implanted it in a mouse that still lives today and whose intellectual faculties have been improved.

The bio-printing is growing more rapidly and again shows its full potential: this technology to create cell structures would enable to produce functional organs using this method. So far several researchers have succeeded in creating a liver, an already considerable advance; the Johns Hopkins University now exceeds this progress by printing a functional 3D brain for a mouse after several years of research.

A functional 3D brain to improve the intellectual capabilities

Thanks to the expertise of the American company Organovo, they used a bio-inkjet printer capable of depositing droplets of bio-ink also called biotins. These are extracted on a culture plate or a hydrogel support and form, layer by layer, the desired organ. Here, researchers from the Johns Hopkins University developed glial cells that they mixed with neurons to create the appropriate biotins. They have now been able to bio-print a brain they implanted successfully in a mouse.