It wasn't that long ago — perhaps two decades — that the idea of a printer in your home printing things from your computer was still fresh, novel technology. And that was years before Bluetooth, WIFI, and wireless network printing.
Gen Xers and older computer users will remember the dot matrix printers of the early 90s: the perforates sides with spaced holes along the edges and the tractor feed process in which your entire computer desk would shake violently when the printer cartridge finished a line and returned to its starting point on the left.
Those were the days when the word “email” wasn't a common household term yet. No one, except for a few folks who carried brick-sized devices, had cell phones.
Isn't it shocking to think that such a “primitive” world was only 20 years ago?
It's even more shocking when you consider where we are now: in 20 years we've gone from dot matrix printers violently shaking desks to 3-D printers printing human organs.
Need A New Kidney On-Demand? No Problem. Just Hit “Print.”
For millions of people, this isn't just an intriguing new fad in technology. This is their lives on the line. If you've ever seen the waiting list for a desperately needed kidney transplant, you understand how huge this is.
The concept isn't particularly complicated, at least from a general far-off view point: a powerful computer designs a 3-D model of a human organ that perfectly matches how a real organ would look like on the outside and the inside — and the computer custom fits it to the needs of the recipient — and then a 3-D printer creates the model using substances such as living cells that can “live” inside a human body without harming the person.
As this scientist in a Live Science article notes:
“We can take materials like collagen, fibrin and alginate, which are the types of materials the body uses to build itself, and 3D print them,” Feinberg said. “We can now build tissue-engineering scaffolds using these materials in incredibly complex structures that more closely match those of real tissues and organs in the body.” (Fibrin helps make up blood clots, while alginate is found in many seaweeds.)
Do We Have The Infrastructure To Make It Happen?
The next step in new technology can often be the most challenging: do we have the infrastructure to bring the tech to everybody?
In other words, do we have low-cost machines that can be used in thousands of convenient locations — i.e. at every local hospital in the country, for example? Does our current health care system have enough staff trained in 3-D technology to make it readily available?
And, of course, the big question: how do we make it affordable for everybody who needs it? The ultimate goal should be to save as many lives as possible, not to make as much profit as we can from it. That's the other hurdle: how do we steer our culture's use of technology toward altruism and not toward self-centeredness at the expense of others?
While we might not have satisfactory answers yet for every one of those questions, there are some hopeful signs on the horizon — particularly as technology advancement makes the process more affordable. A recent breakthrough at Carnegie Mellon University, as explained in this Oct. 2015 article, means that 3-D printing of organs is very close to becoming a real option. It might not be long before those machines begin appearing in hospitals.
Why People Are Using Ihe “I” Word
There have been more medical news headlines with the word “immortality” in them in 2015 than in any other year. These are serious, pragmatic people using this word — doctors and researchers who see all this startling technology and envision a world in which people simply replace old or broken organs with new ones. Sometimes we forget that skin is the body's largest organ. It's probably not too far-fetched to imagine us somebody finding a way to replace that organ too. And then there's the advancements in brain rejuvenation, such as the research being done for NFL players with concussions that is producing remarkably successful treatment.
While we may not achieve immortality in the classic sense — where we're impervious not only to aging or disease but to any kind of danger (a 3-D liver transplant won't protect you if you decide to wrestle a crocodile) — people are seriously wondering what this new technology will do to our life expectancy.
Could we see an age soon in which people are commonly living to be 200 years old? In an age that has self-thinking robots, it's not outrageous to ask questions like this.
