Project Overview

By using a patient's own cells combined with 3D bioprinting BIOLIFE4D creates a patient-specific, fully functioning heart, eliminating the challenges of organ rejection and long donor waiting lists that plague existing organ transplant methods.

Organisation

Biolife4D

Project Context

BIOLIFE4D is a pioneering biotech company laser focused on leveraging advances in life sciences and tissue engineering to 3D bioprint a viable human heart suitable for transplant – lifesaving technology that gives patients the gift of time.

Financed through equity crowdfunding, BIOLIFE4D is driving a movement to transform the treatment of heart disease, the leading cause of death among both men and women worldwide.

The start-up believes that recent breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, stem cell biology, 3D printing techniques and computing technology mean that they are well placed to make organ replacement commercially viable and commonplace globally.

Project Innovation

The process combines several steps that have been developed by various researchers in university labs. First, a patient’s heart will be scanned using an MRI machine to create a digital image of the heart’s shape and size. Next, doctors will take a blood sample. Using techniques that have been developed over the last decade, the blood cells will be converted into stem cells–and then converted a second time into heart cells. Those new heart cells will be combined with nutrients in a hydrogel to make a “bio-ink” that can be used in a specialized 3D printer.

Printing one layer at a time, with a biodegradable scaffolding to keep everything in place, the cells can be formed into the exact shape of the patient’s original heart. The new heart will be moved to a bioreactor to strengthen it. Amazingly, new heart cells outside a body will begin to self-assemble.

New bioprinted organs also solve a bigger problem: Few hearts are currently available for transplant, so the majority of people on waiting lists never have a chance for surgery at all. If hearts can be made from scratch, there will no longer be a lack of supply. Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, claiming one in three lives.