This might not look like much, but it could be the future of surgery and cancer treatment. This is what its designers call F3DB, a 3D bioprinter that uses bio-ink to repair the body’s organs, but it can do so from inside the body. Conventional bioprinting must first be done outside the body, then relying on invasive surgery to get whatever has been printed to where it needs to go. This method involves long recovery times, blood loss, chance for infection, you name it.
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00:00This might not look like much, but it could be the future of surgery and cancer treatment.
00:09This is what its designers call F3DB, a 3D bioprinter that uses bioink to repair the
00:14body's organs, but it can do so from inside the body.
00:18Conventional bioprinting must first be done outside the body, then relying on invasive
00:21surgery to get whatever has been printed to where it needs to go.
00:24That method involves long recovery times, blood loss, chance of infection, you name
00:28it.
00:29This method, however, involves a flexible 3D printer, meaning it can be inserted endoscopically
00:34through a small hole to deliver the bioink wherever it needs to go.
00:37What's more, the device is an all-in-one tool, with a scalpel and a water jet nozzle
00:41on the end, allowing doctors to go in and remove cancerous cells, then apply repairing
00:45treatments immediately following the procedure.
00:47Right now, the flexible 3D printer is only 11-13mm in diameter, but they expect to get
00:53that even smaller as testing continues.
00:55According to its developers, there's nothing else like this currently available for doctors,
00:59and they expect the device to be released within the next 5-7 years, possibly changing
01:03the way we do surgery forever.