3D Printing Paving the Way for Medical Miracles
New research may give women faced with infertility new hope.
FOX’s Alex Hein reports:
This is Housecall for Health.
The magic of 3D printing has paved the way for medical miracles through the field of modern medicine. The latest involves a mouse, prosthetic ovaries and a healthy offspring.
Being hailed as a landmark study, researchers believe the engineered ovaries made of gelatin, could one day help to restore fertility in human cancer survivors rendered sterile by radiation or chemotherapy.
The team built the ovaries by 3D printing various patterns of overlapping gelatin filaments on glass slides. Then they carefully inserted the mouse follicles into the scaffolds.
They implanted 40 to 50 follicles into each bio-prosthetic ovary and sutured them into seven mice. After mating, three of the females gave birth to healthy litters. They also gave birth and lactated naturally, meaning the follicles produced a normal level of hormones in the mice.
They’re hopeful a similar method using extracted follicles from humans or donated samples could create similar results.
For more on this story, check FOXNewsHealth.com.
Housecall for Health, I’m Alex Hein, FOX News.
