From Dot Matrix to Kidneys...

What a long strange trip it's been.  I can remember as a kid getting a Commodore 64 computer, and along with it, we had an Okidata dot matrix printer... you remember them, they had those strips along both sides of the paper with all the holes punched into them, and after you printed something, you had to fold and tear off the strips?  That was maybe 25 years ago?  And now, we have high resolution color printers that print in 3-D, and not only that, we have 3D printers that can print, not in all the colors of the rainbow, but in the cells and tissues of the human body.  Already, there are printers out there that can print skin and blood vessels, with the hope that, in the future, we will be able to print out other tissues and even whole organs like livers and kidneys.  Commercially available 3D printers are already in use in hospitals, allowing surgeons to print out full scale models of the organs they will be operating on.  For example, a series of CAT scans can be converted into a 3D printed replica of the brain (or more specifically a map of the blood vessels in the brain) so that neurosurgeons can then practice on it before doing the actual surgery.  Of course, I don't think we'll be seeing printers spitting out whole brains anytime soon, but they might be able to print neurons (or networks of neurons) right into the tissues or organs they print.  Check it out...