3D bioprinting could revolutionising drug discovery: cells from one patient are extracted and cultured in the laboratory. A tissue sample is printed, on which new molecules can be tested as treatments for whole populations. Steffen Harr, Author provided

Body organs such as kidneys, livers and hearts are incredibly complex tissues. Each is made up of many different cell types, plus other components that give the organs their structure and allow them to function as we need them to.

For 3D printed organs to work, they must mimic what happens naturally – both in terms of arrangement and serving a biological need. For example, a kidney must process and excrete waste in the form of urine.

 eGenesis, a biotechnology company focused on transforming xenotransplantation into a lifesaving medical procedure, published a study authored  by eGenesis scientists and their collaborators in the journal Science, demonstrating the inactivation of PERV to prevent cross-species viral transmission and a breakthrough in producing the first PERV-free pigs, an important milestone for xenotransplantation. 

Since highly versatile human stem cells were discovered at the University of Wisconsin–Madison nearly 20 years ago, their path to the market and clinic has been slowed by a range of complications.

Both embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells are valued for their ability to form any cell in the body.

A  University of Washington –Madison team reports in Nature Biomedical Engineering that they have jumped a major hurdle on the path toward wider use of stem cells.  Using an automated screening test that they devised, William Murphy, a professor of biomedical engineering, and colleagues Eric Nguyen and William Daly have invented an all-chemical replacement for  the confusing, even dangerous materials, now used to grow these delicate cells.

ETH researchers from the Functional Materials Laboratory have developed a silicone heart that beats almost like a human heart. In collaboration with colleagues from the Product Development Group Zurich, they have tested how well it works.

It looks like a real heart. And this is the goal of the first entirely soft artificial heart: to mimic its natural model as closely as possible. The silicone heart has been developed by Nicholas Cohrs, a doctoral student in the group led by Wendelin Stark, Professor of Functional Materials Engineering at ETH Zurich. The reasoning why nature should be used as a model is clear. Currently used blood pumps have many disadvantages: their mechanical parts are susceptible to complications while the patient lacks a physiological pulse, which is assumed to have some consequences for the patient.

Rapid improvement in DNA sequencing has sparked a proliferation of medical and genetic tests that promise to reveal everything from one’s ancestry to fitness levels to microorganisms that live in your gut.

A new study from University of Washington researchers that analyzed the security hygiene of common, open-source DNA processing programs finds evidence of poor computer security practices used throughout the field    .

In the study the team also demonstrated for the first time that it is possible — though still challenging — to compromise a computer system with a malicious computer code stored in synthetic DNA. When that DNA is analyzed, the code can become executable malware that attacks the computer system running the software.