For the first time in the world, a 3D printed ear with human cells was transplanted in New York

After the operation she looked at herself and said: “I can’t wait to tie my hair, to do a braid”. The girl who underwent this extraordinary operation, the creation of a part of the body that was not there using the patient’s own cells, was born with a congenital malformation, microtia: a rare defect that makes the auricle deformed. Basically her right ear had never formed. In March, she had a new 3D printed ear transplanted exactly copying the shape of her left and which will continue to regenerate cartilage tissue, increasingly taking on the appearance of a natural ear.

This is only the first success of an ongoing trial on 11 patients in the laboratories of the 3DBio Therapeuticsa biotechnology company in Queens. “It’s definitely a great thing,” he said Adam Feinberg, professor of biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and co-founder of FluidForm, a regenerative medicine company that also uses 3D printing. “This shows that this technology is no longer an ‘if’, but a ‘when’.” The surgeon who performed the transplant says he is not himself: “It’s so exciting that I have to check myself.” And indeed the success of this technology is proof of the extraordinary progress in tissue engineering, and is a first step towards a science that could in the future lead to the transplantation of nasal septa, injured tissues, menisci or more vital organs. complexes such as liver or kidneys minimizing the risk of rejection thanks to the use of the patient’s cells.