Thanks to 3D printing technology, a bioengineer at the McGill University Health Centre is taking personalized health care to a whole new level.

Lung regenerative medicine specialist Darcy Wagner and her team have developed a way to treat a damaged lung, by creating lung tissue using extrusion-based bioprinting with a 3D printer.

“We have the cells in this sort of liquid state of a polymer, a specific type of plastic that’s compatible with the body, and then it gels afterwards by a chemical trigger,” she explained in her lab at the MUHC Research Institute at the Glen site.

She added that the process is similar to regular 3D printing.

“So, in a regular 3D printer, you have a nozzle that has a high temperature. It heats (the material) so it becomes liquid and when it comes out the other side, the air automatically cools it. We’re trying to mimic that process but we have to do that in ways that are compatible with cells.”

Wagner was drawn to this field because there’s a global shortage of lungs for transplant. According to the the MUHC, just 7,000 lung transplants happen worldwide annually, though millions of patients are waiting.

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“If you’re lucky enough to get one of these really rare lungs that are eligible for transplantation, you have the worst outcome of any solid organ transplants right now,” Wagner said.

Three-dimensional bioprinting isn’t new, but this is the first time it’s been done with materials made specifically for the lung.

Wagner’s team believes this new method will revolutionize the way respiratory care is delivered. Creating new lung tissue to bypass damaged tissue can help eliminate the need for a lung transplant, according to the bioengineer, useful in lung or airway cancers where a tumour has invaded one area.

“The rest of the lung is completely normal. So, if we can just reconstruct that part, this would be a game-changer for a lot of patients,” she reasoned.

So far, the researchers haven’t seen any signs of rejection in mice.

“The materials that we designed actually promote new blood vessels to grow in from the patient themselves,” she said.

Dr. Alan Forster, director for innovation, quality and performance at the MUHC, believes this new procedure will help push forward the concept of personalized medicine.

“The concept of personalized medicine is where I think we’re going,” he said. “It entails specific therapies for specific people, based on their biology, based on their background, based on their specific disease.”

He believes innovations like this, what he calls “designer treatments,” is going to create huge changes in health care.

The challenge, he noted, is how to pay for it all.

What do we do to make this sustainable for the whole population? I feel that there is probably some need to reform insurance practices, how we support the social good.”

On the research side, he argues that more partnership is needed to support breakthroughs in innovation.

Wagner got hundreds of thousands of dollars for her research — including over $375,000 from the MUHC foundation.

But her 3D bioprinting work isn’t finished. She now has to create larger tissue samples than those for mice before human trials can be attempted.

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