now this is cool, biopaper for organ printing:

from slashdot:

A New Biopaper for Organ Printing

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday November 07, @05:46PM

from the 98.6-off-the-presses dept.

Roland Piquepaille writes "Organ printing is an emerging branch of medicine which uses healthy cells to repair a damaged or diseased organ. But as its name implies, this new medical technology needs ink, paper and a printer. Now, a new hydrogel -- or biopaper -- developed at the University of Utah has been selected by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to speed up this process. This five-year NSF study will initially try to print blood vessels and cardiovascular networks. But its real goal is to build some complex organs, such as livers or kidneys. This technology can potentially help millions of people waiting for transplants."

http://tinyurl.com/b7dcu

Deseret Morning News, Saturday, November 05, 2005

U. makes a healing 'bio-paper'

By Lois M. Collins
Deseret Morning News

An emerging branch of medicine called "organ printing" takes a patient's own healthy cells and uses a printer, cell-based "bio-ink" and "bio-paper" to create tissue to repair a damaged organ.

Now a hydrogel or "bio-paper" developed by a University of Utah College of Pharmacy professor is a key component of a $5 million National Science Foundation-sponsored study that includes organ printing.

"Think of taking a blood vessel — a cylindrical object — and trying to reconstruct it in 3D with two-dimensional slices," said U. Presidential Professor of Medicinal Chemistry Glenn D. Prestwich, who created the hydrogel. He likens the resulting slices to a "non-nutritious doughnut" with muscle cells on the outside and endothelial cells inside. To make the cylinder, those flat doughnut sections are literally printed, one thin layer of cells and hydrogel at a time, the platform moving away from the printer's "bio-ink"-delivering needles as the cylinder grows.

http://tinyurl.com/9mbbk