The International Space Station is an unbelievable laboratory that reserve us to consider the world in a way we ca n’t reproduce on Earth . The latest instance of this is the first structure of engineered cartilage without scaffold tissue paper . Instead , it was built using magnetic levitation bioassembly .
Tissue engineering is a cutting - edge field that may voice like sci - fi but is very real . Still , some obstacles have prove hard to master . One such representative is the staging to build the tissue itself . you could call up of scaffold as the mould of whatever piece of figure or organ you are creating . To use this tissue , the mould must be able to come off .
For this reason , scientists have been investigating approach that do not require a social system to help with the assembly . Microgravity can help with that , and tissues have been built in spacebefore , but it ’s important to have a tool that can push material together . That ’s where the attractor come in .
Cells are not course magnetic so compounds bonk as gadolinium chelates are unremarkably used . regrettably , these are toxic to cells with Cupid’s itch normally used on Earth . Another reasonableness why going to infinite with the method is attractive .
The team used a thermoreversible hydrogel into which they dropped small empyrean of cartilage that were permeate with a low-toned dose of gadolinium chelate . Cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko placed these sample in a specially designed charismatic bioassembler . There the little spherules of gristle were capable to merge into a tissue paper .
A blob of cartilage is not a fully functional 3D - print organ , but it is an exciting first step in this proficiency in space . The forward-looking glide path has many potential software , both in the construction of organic and inorganic materials ( even both at the same time ) . This could be used in technological program beyond the realm of medicine .
The next stair for the researcher is to construct something more complex . They will combine magnetized fields with sound waves to build something cylindrical , similar to a trachea or urethra , but for now on a smaller scale .
