Artificial ear grown from living tissue

Scientists have developed an artificial 'lifelike' ear, using a 3D printer and cartilage from sheep, that works just like the real organ.
Researchers hope the lab-made substitute organs can be used to replace the damaged or missing body parts of patients.
More research and development will be needed before it could be used in clinical transplants on patients, scientists said.
Researchers hope that patients with missing or deformed outer ears, such as kids suffering from a congenital deformity called microtia, might soon be offered living substitutes that could be permanently attached to their heads.
The artificial ear has a key feature in the form of a cartilage scaffold with an embedded titanium wire which retains the shape of the structure as well as maintaining its flexibility, 'The Independent' reported.

"The technology is now under development for clinical trials, and thus we have scaled-up and redesigned the prominent features of this scaffold to match the size of an adult human ear and to preserve the aesthetic appearance after implantation," researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said.

Researchers formed a collagen connective tissue from a cow into the shape of a human pinna - the fleshy visible part of the ear - and held in place by titanium wire.
They then "seeded" the porous collagen with ear cartilage cells taken from a sheep and the cells grew within the porous collagen fibres.

Scientists grew the ear on mice and rats lacking an immune system to show that it was possible for it to be connected to a blood supply without tissue rejection.
The ear would have to be either made from a patient's own stem cells or used with anti-rejection drugs to be used in a human transplant.
Scientists said a key feature of the technology is that the ear can be designed to look as natural or 'lifelike' as possible by pulling the skin taut over the wire and cartilage frame using vacuum suction.