Indiana team to 3D print human tissue in space
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A 3D bioprinter created in small town southern Indiana will blast off to the International Space Station (ISS) in the coming weeks—pioneering a process that could ultimately print human transplant organs in outer space. The mission is a major step forward for Florida-based Redwire, which acquired Techshot in Greenville less than a year ago. Although bearing a new name, the Indiana operation is spearheading Redwire’s in-space manufacturing and operations business unit—even controlling the bioprinter “from our own little mission control center” in Greenville—and the location is poised to have its best year of sales since it was founded 34 years ago.
The launch will mark the second time the bioprinter, called the 3D BioFabrication Facility (BFF) will be on the ISS, but this time, the printer will make outer space its permanent home. Touted as the first-ever system able to manufacture human tissue in microgravity, the project begs the question, why in space? The answer is simple: it’s impossible on Earth.
When building any structure on Earth, such as a house or bridge, scaffolding must be used underneath for support during construction, so it doesn’t collapse; the same is true for human tissue. When building soft human tissue on Earth, the material collapses under its own weight into a puddle.
“We go to space to do our 3D bioprints [because] gravity doesn’t make all the layers settle to the bottom in one thin little puddle; things stay where you put them in microgravity,” says Richard Boling, corporate advancement vice president of in-space manufacturing and operations at Redwire.
Eliminating the pull of gravity means the bioprinter could also build hollow cavities like those in the human heart or open cylinders, such as blood vessels.
Using bio “ink” made from adult stem cells, proteins and other growth factors, the BFF prints ultra-fine layers—thinner than a human hair—using some of the smallest print tips in existence. After the tissue is printed, however, it can’t immediately come to Earth “because it would just turn back into a puddle,” says Boling. While still in space, the tissue is placed inside Redwire’s other device, the ADvanced Space Experiment Processor (ADSEP), which conditions and solidifies the assembled cells into tissue in a matter of weeks, so it’s Earth-ready.
When the BFF is launched to its permanent home on the ISS in a few weeks, Boling says Redwire will “push the envelope” of its capabilities. Since its previous trip to space, its Hoosier designers have mastered the ability to control the temperature of BFF’s four printheads.
“Many of the most physiologically relevant bio-inks are also temperature sensitive, and some even end up solidifying at higher temperatures,” says Redwire Senior Scientist Dr. Aaron J. Rogers. “BFF’s new temperature controlled printheads…will allow our customers to easily translate their work to BFF and will also lead to more physiologically-relevant and structurally sound 3D bioprinted constructs.”
The BFF already has its first paying customer; Redwire printed a human knee meniscus onboard the International Space Station in 2020 for The Geneva Foundation. The nonprofit advances military medicine and is interested in finding new ways to treat meniscal injury—one of the most common orthopedic injuries affecting military members.
In addition to such research projects, Boling says a key application for BFF is testing drug efficacy. For example, a customer would pay for the BFF to print a cell cluster that represents an organ, such as the pancreas, then drugs can be tested on the bioprinted material.
“Some companies try to do this on the ground, but the issue they run into is…the tissue they print…for drug efficacy testing is not the best mimic for humans—for a real representation of that particular organ they’re trying to test against,” says Boling. “It’s back to the benefit of doing it in space; it’s much more like an actual tissue in the human body.”
And the ultimate goal—to print human organs in space for transplant on Earth—is more attainable with each mission, says Redwire. While the BFF was designed and built in southern Indiana—from creating the circuit boards “from scratch” to manufacturing the components—the team’s sights are set on space, where printing organs would, indeed, be a “giant leap for mankind.”
Boling says all of the work for the BFF from start to finish was completed in Greenville.
Boling says the Greenville operation is poised to have the best year in its history in terms of sales.