DIY | Maker

It may sound far-fetched, but scientists are attempting to build a human heart with a 3D printer.

Ultimately, the goal is to create a new heart for a patient with their own cells that could be transplanted. It is an ambitious project to first, make a heart and then get it to work in a patient, and it could be years -- perhaps decades -- before a 3D printed heart would ever be put in a person.

Craig Venter imagines a future where you can download software, print a vaccine, inject it, and presto! Contagion averted. “It’s a 3-D printer for DNA, a 3-D printer for life,” Venter said here today at the inaugural Wired Health Conference in New York City. The geneticist and his team of scientists are already testing out a version of his digital biological converter, or “teleporter.”

Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine have created a hybrid 3D printer that’s able to manufacture implantable cartilage for regenerative use in patients. The team combined traditional inkjet printing with electrospinning, a method that uses an electrical current to create extremely fine fibers from plastic polymers.