Jemma Redmond obituary
Jemma Redmond, who has died aged 38, founded the Irish 3D bioprinting startup Ourobotics, and developed the first 10-material bioprinter capable of using live human cells. Bioprinting - the use of 3D printing, with largely organic materials - is creating organs for surgeons to use in patients. Today, surgery using bioprinted body parts is in its first trials.
In February 2016, the neurosurgeon Ralph Mobbs in Australia placed two 3D-printed cervical vertebrae, made of titanium, in the upper neck of a patient whose cancer tumour was slowly compressing his brain stem and spinal cord. It was a world first, and a rarely attempted surgery, largely because of the difficulty in making a fit with bone from elsewhere in the body. But much more can be done by printing with actual cells, instead of titanium. The next step - printing surgically usable kidneys, livers and hearts - requires advances in two areas, bioprinting and stem-cell technology, allowing printing to use a person's own cells.
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