Researchers are exploring an innovative approach that brings together 3D printing technology, stem cells, and laboratory-cultivated tissues—a combination that shows promise as a potential game-changer for helping people recover from spinal cord injuries, according to recent research.
The technique involves using 3D printing to shape stem cells into specialized scaffolds. These scaffolds feature tiny channels at the microscopic level that help direct how new nerve cells develop at the location of spinal cord damage, as detailed in Advanced Healthcare Materials.
“We use the 3D printed channels of the scaffold to direct the growth of the stem cells, which ensures the new nerve fibers grow in the desired way,” lead researcher Gueburn Han, formerly with the University of Minnesota and now a postdoctoral researcher, explained in a news release.
“This method creates a relay system that when placed in the spinal cord bypasses the damaged area,” said Han, now a mechanical engineer with Intel Corp.
In the United States alone, over 300,000 people live with spinal cord injuries. Yet currently, no treatments exist that can completely reverse the damage and resulting paralysis these injuries cause, according to background information provided by researchers.
A major challenge lies in the fact that nerve cells can’t naturally regenerate across damaged areas of the injury site—at least not yet, which makes such injuries permanent.
For their recent research, scientists implanted these 3D-printed scaffolds into laboratory rats whose spinal cords had sustained complete severance.
The results showed success: the cells transformed into neurons and started producing nerve fibers that extended in both directions along the spine, working to establish new pathways with the rats’ existing spinal cord tissue, researchers reported.