Writing for Professional Engineering, Amit Katwala describes how engineers are building organs, limbs and bones by using 3-D printing.

He says additive manufacturing offers the possibility to create shapes that simply could not be made using any other technology. “That is already proving useful in manufacturing, and it could be revolutionary when it comes to medicine and prosthetics, where pioneering engineers are creating techniques and materials to mimic the properties of natural tissue.

“They hope to make life a little easier for amputees, or cater to some of the 120,000 people who undergo organ transplants each year, and those on the waiting lists owing to a lack of donors.

“Commercial giants such as L’Oreal and Procter & Gamble are investigating the technology, along with academics from all over the world.”

In 2016, a group of researchers at Northwestern University in Illinois — led by Ramille Shah — developed a new kind of white ‘ink’ that can be used to create flexible bone implants of any size that turn into ‘real bone’ once they’re inside the body.

That is because the ink structure is porous, so blood vessels can grow through it and infiltrate it; the printed part is used as a scaffold for the body to grow.

The bones are soft and malleable, so they could be manipulated by surgeons in the operating theatre to make sure they fit in place; they can also be printed to the exact specifications required by individual patients.

Ms Shah said: “The turn-round time for an implant that’s specialised for a customer could be within 24hr. That could change the world of cranio-facial and orthopaedic surgery and, I hope, will improve patient outcomes.”