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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A 3D bioprint of "living blood vessels"
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:04
	Publish Date:		2016-06-14 19:00:00
	Description:		A 3D bioprint of ‘living’ blood vessels may change the way researchers do biology. This, according to bioengineer Monica Moya of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Moya led a project that used a 3D printer and a ‘bio-ink’ to successfully print structures with living cells and biomaterials. "We use the word ‘ink’, but it’s not quite an ink. It’s really just kind of a gel-like material that the cells are inside of. The challenge with what we’re doing is we’re actually printing the cells with the material, this gel-like substance. Other people will print just the scaffolding and they’ll use just the material and then they’ll add the cells later on. The difference is that when you don’t print he cells with the material, you’re losing that ability to control where the cells are going to be spatially." The hope is that their ‘living blood vessels’ may someday literally feed the end goal of 3D bioprinting – that is, the ability to print organs and tissues. "So what you need in order to really make these 3D strucgtures, is a vasculature."
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