New Organ

Check out this amazing video of work from one of the
NASA Centennial Challenges Vascular Tissue Challenge teams! A great step in advancing thick-tissue vascularization - one of the key road-map challenges toward ending the organ shortage!

Laser-welded sugar: Sweet way to 3D-print blood vessels.

Laser-welded sugar is sweet way to 3D print blood vessels Powdered sugar is the special ingredient in a Rice University recipe for mimicking the body’s intricate, branching blood vessels in lab-grown tissues. In res...

Research suggests some parts of the body age slower than others. Interesting implications for organ engineering and transplantation!

Why your organs might reach 100 even if you don't Research suggests some parts of the body age faster than others to the point that they even outlive their owners. Could understanding this better help us to live longer?

New information about the benefits of growing stem cells in microgravity from one of our partner researchers.

Feasibility, potency, and safety of growing human mesenchymal stem cells in space for clinical application Growing stem cells on Earth is very challenging and limited to a few population doublings. The standard two-dimensional (2D) culture environment is an unnatural condition for cell growth. Therefore, culturing stem cells aboard the International Space Station (ISS) under a microgravity environment ma...

Check out this exciting collaboration between NASA researchers and a Vascular Tissue Challenge team on 3D bioprinting.

Indianapolis VA Medical Center and NASA To Explore 3D Bioprinting for Healthcare - 3DPrint.com | The Voice of 3D Printing / Additive Manufacturing Exposure to space radiation, gravity fields, contaminated atmospheres, are all part of the hostile environment astronauts encounter beyond Earth’s orbit. As they transition from one gravity field to another, the...

The Vascular Tissue Challenge was recently highlighted by 3dheals. Check out the video interview with the challenge director to learn more about how university students are taking on the VTC and how 3D bioprinting is starting to revolutionize healthcare! You can also learn more at the 3DHeals virtual Summit coming up in June!

Interview with Joshua Neubert, NASA Vascular Tissue Challenge Joshua Neubert is a regular instructor, public speaker & lecturer in entrepreneurship, innovation, and education topics particularly related to science and technology fields.

A new review was just published from Dr. Arun Sharma - one of our New Organ Alliance members - about multi-cell lineage models using pluripotent stem cells. Sourcing cells is a huge challenge for bioengineering tissues and organs of any size. Check out the article here:

Multi-lineage Human iPSC-Derived Platforms for Disease Modeling and Drug Discovery Sharma et al. review recent advances in multi-cell-lineage, hiPSC-derived platforms for disease modeling and drug screening. These complex model systems, which include organoids, assembloids, organ-chips, and tissue-engineered constructs, are more realistic representations of human tissues containi...

Cool connections to what we're doing with the Vascular Tissue Challenge!

How is Biotechnology Preparing us to Live on the Moon and Mars? The adventures awaiting astronauts on future long-duration missions have technologists researching sustainable ways to live away from Earth. We’re using what we know from almost 20 years of a...

Check out this Bloomberg story on Techshot, Inc.'s efforts to bioprint tissues and organs in space: https://youtu.be/p_hauPqouH8?t=156. Techshot is one of 19 teams preparing to conduct a Vascular Tissue Challenge trial in the next year.

Bloomberg Giant Leap episode excerpt featuring Techshot Edited excerpt from the Bloomberg Giant Leap series featuring Techshot, Inc.

⏰DEADLINE APPROACHING! Friday, Sept. 30 is the last day for research groups to submit a trial application for the Vascular Tissue Challenge! Trial applications outline how you would conduct a trial. Groups have through September 2020 to actually complete their trial to win the $500,000 challenge! NASA Centennial Challenges SEE MORE >>

New Organ - VTC Prize This challenge will rally scientists worldwide to produce viable thick-tissue assays that can be used to advance research on human physiology.

Exciting news on 3D Organ printing involving two research teams in the Vascular Tissue Challenge:

3D-printing organs moves a few more steps closer to commercialization – TechCrunch New successes in printing vascular tissue from living cells point to the accelerating pace of development of 3D-printing tissue — and eventually the ability to manufacture organs from small samples of cells. Late last month Prellis Biologics announced an $8.7 million round of funding and some…

Rice University's 3D Bioprinting group just published a major step forward in printing solid organs! https://science.sciencemag.org/content/364/6439/458

They're also competing for the $500,000 Vascular Tissue Challenge, now in its final year to win the prize!

Multivascular networks and functional intravascular topologies within biocompatible hydrogels In air-breathing vertebrates, the circulatory and pulmonary systems contain separate networks of channels that intertwine but do not intersect with each other. Recreating such structures within cell-compatible materials has been a major challenge; even a single vasculature system can be a burden to....

Could this newly discovered DNA switch hold the key for human regeneration?

Harvard University uncovers DNA switch that controls genes for whole-body regeneration Humans may one day have the ability to regrow limbs after scientists at Harvard University uncovered the DNA switch that controls genes for whole-body regeneration.