Printing organs cell-by-cell: 3-D printing is growing in popularity, but how should we regulate the application of this new technology to health care?

W elcome to the body shop, where machines are busy constructing new organs, one cell at a time. 3-D bioprinters, cousins to the common inkjet printer, squirt cells into a scaffold, printing and nurturing an organ until it can be transplanted into a patient. 3-D bioprinting might sound like science fiction, but the technology is already in the early stages of development and use. It builds on experience and advances made in bioengineering to enable the more efficient and cheaper production of tissues, organs, and body parts. However, if it goes mainstream, 3-D bioprinting is likely to raise challenging legal and ethical issues, as well as to come up against regulatory hurdles. ...................................................... “3-D bioprinters [. . .] squirt cells into a scaffold, printing and nurturing an organ until it can be transplanted into a patient.” ......................................................