A new instrument could someday build replacement human
organs the way electronics are assembled today: with precise picking and
placing of parts.
In this case, the parts are not resistors and capacitors,
but 3-D microtissues containing thousands to millions of living cells that need
a constant stream of fluid to bring them nutrients and to remove waste. The new
device is called “BioP3” for pick, place, and perfuse. A team of researchers
led by Jeffrey Morgan, a Brown University bioengineer, and Dr. Andrew Blakely,
a surgery fellow at Rhode Island Hospital and the Warren Alpert Medical School,
introduces BioP3 in a new paper in the journal Tissue Engineering Part C.