3D打印机有望“打印”出人体器官_BEC初级作文

3D打印机有望“打印”出人体器官

In the early 2000s, scientists and doctors saw the potential to use this technology to construct living tissue, maybe even human organs. They called it 3-D bioprinting, and it is a red-hot branch of the burgeoning field of tissue engineering。

在本世纪初，科学家和医生们就看到了该技术的潜力无穷——人们可以利用它制作活性组织，甚至是人类器官。他们称这项技术为3D生物打印，而它也成为组织工程学新兴领域的热门分支。

In laboratories all over the world, experts in chemistry, biology, medicine and engineering are working on many paths toward an audacious goal: to print a functioning human liver, kidney or heart using a patient’s own cells。

在世界各地的实验室里，化学、生物、医药和工程学领域的专家们正致力于研究实现一个大胆目标的多元途径。而这个目标就是：用病患自己的细胞打印出功能齐全的肝、肾或者心脏。

That's right - new organs, to go. If they succeed, donor waiting lists could become a thing of the past。

这个方向没什么错。如果他们成功了，等待器官捐献的病患名单将成为过去时。

Bioprinting technology is years and possibly decades from producing such complex organs, but scientists have already printed skin and vertebral disks and put them into bodies. So far, none of those bodies have been human, but a few types of printed replacement parts could be ready for human trials in two to five years。