I know something about you that you may
not even know yourself you lost an organ
crucial for life and this holds true for
each and every single one of you the
reason why we can sit here and listen to
TED talks is because we had this organ
once in the beginning of our lives I’m
talking about the placenta or afterbirth
throughout the pregnancy the baby is
connected via the umbilical cord to the
placenta which in terms enters into the
uterus of the mother it’s a fascinating
organ and it has versatile functions but
you can imagine it like a filter between
the blood of the mother and the plot of
the baby the placenta ensures that there
are enough nutrients and oxygen getting
through to the baby so it can breathe
and grow and it also functions like a
barrier towards harmful influences
bacteria for example are normally kept
out of the baby circulation to keep it
healthy and although this organ is so
important for a successful pregnancy we
know so little about it and we’re having
a hard time predicting what can actually
pass from the mother’s blood to the baby
what happens when the mother it takes
medication will it reach the baby well
if you belong to the very brave people
who ever read a medication leaflet all
the way from the beginning to the ending
you may have noticed that this read
would have been a lot shorter if you
were pregnant often there’s just one
sentence included saying if you’re
pregnant ask a doctor let me translate
that for you the author basically wants
to tell us that there’s no way
to test substances for the use during
pregnancy now I’ve always been
fascinated by drugs let me rephrase that
I’ve always been super interested in how
active substances act on the human body
because we’re surrounded by them
basically every day and I always wanted
to know more about that and I also
always wanted to help people that’s why
after graduating from high school I went
to work in the rescue service and that
was a great time sometimes I was able to
help people although it felt like most
of the times we had to do paperwork
it was in Germany after all and I also
took the chance to ask my co-workers
about medication and how it works and I
would bug them over and over and in the
beginning they were super happy that I
was interested but eventually they’d
have some important paperwork to do so I
still wanted to know in detail how
substances act and so I studied human
biology where I learned about how the
human body works in health and in
disease how to develop active substances
and how to test them and the answer to
how substances act on the human body is
that it depends on the system you test
them on nowadays it’s a requirement for
medicine to be tested in animals before
they get to the human but we know that
rats are not tiny humans they work
differently and especially when it comes
to pregnancy this is evolutionary scene
the most distant process between humans
and animals so if we want to learn more
about pregnancy
the placenta which develops differently
and looks differently and mice for
example we won’t get far
with animal models now in science we’re
used to complex topics and we break them
down to a simple aspect to start with
and the most simple methods we have in
biological labs to investigate
substances is the so called cell culture
you basically have a petri dish and you
culture human cells on it the cells they
adhere to glass or plastic and in a two
dimensional environment and too often
this model is too simple because in real
organs we have a 3d environment cells
are surrounded by other cells by other
cell types and there’s something which
is called the extracellular matrix
giving the shape to the organ and
holding the cells together so let’s just
call it salut and you can imagine the
consistency like a soft gummy bear and
it’s also very important the cell glue
to give signals to the cells about where
they are and which function they need to
adopt so it’s common sense nowadays in
science that this 3d environment is
necessary for a normal cell function and
for meaningful testing in research now
to learn more about human organs do we
I will tell you something we can now 3d
bio prints human organs it may seem like
science fiction to you but just like the
self ordering diaper the future is here
my team and I developed a 3d printer
with which we can print living
functional biological tissues so what I
do every day is I print the human
placenta and I want to tell you how I do
it so besides the 3d printer I need
three more components I use the cells
that would otherwise grow in a petri
dish I actually use different cell types
as they occur in the real placenta and
then I also need the cell glue giving
the shape in the end and we can actually
produce this cell glue in a liquid form
in our lab and we can then selectively
relate it by the exposure of light and
then I also need to tell the printer in
which shape I want to have the object in
the end so I need to make a 3d computer
model and after doing a lot of research
about how the placenta is build up what
its functions are and what is really
crucial what I need to have in my model
I came up with a 3d model I cannot with
a disc no joke
is the beauty lies in its simplicity so
I introduce all the three components
into the printer I mix the cells into
the liquid cell glue I put it into the
printer and in the printer the liquid is
exposed to light and the shape of the
computer model and this is how the
printing process looks like in the end I
have a little gummy bear with cells in
it and this is my hand
no giant hands and you can see that it’s
pretty small the actual placenta is like
this big maybe but it contains the same
components so it works just like the
real placenta just on a smaller scale
and I’ve been talking about 3d printing
so far probably it would be more
accurate to talk about 40 printing
because now we need another dimension
time after the printing process is
complete I need to make sure that the
cells they feel as if they were in our
body I put them in a nutritious media in
a liquid in its components similar to
the human blood and I keep it at body
temperature 37 degrees and then over
time I see something amazing I see that
the cells they grow and divide and they
interact with their environment and they
actually remodel it that means that
they’re building their own environment
and that is the most natural form you
can have because the cells are the best
how their environment is supposed to be
like and at this point further research
can be conducted
you can now test if a substance can pass
from the one side to the other and what
it does to the tissue in between in this
way you may have a better approximation
what will happen to an unborn if the
mother takes a substance you can also
investigate what happens if pregnant
woman is exposed to particles or
chemicals in her environment or to food
additives and my vision is
to improve healthcare for pregnant women
with 3d bioprinting you could also
investigate what happens for example in
an infection with the Zika virus and in
the best case the 3d bioprinting mini
placenta we’ll be able to eliminate the
one sentence in the medication leaflet
the German way by replacing it with even
more text and now you may ask yourself
how does that impact you because we
figured you’re already lost the placenta
some time ago well in the same way that
we can print a mini placenta we can
print other mini organs which are
important for substance metabolism in
the mom-to-be
but also in you and me and if you think
a little further if today we are already
able to print functional mini organs
what does the future hold
currently science is learning from
printing mini organs what cells need to
function naturally and we’re already
able to print blood vessels which are
important to supply a bigger print with
nutrients so in a few decades doctors
might be able to get back to 3d bio
printed whole organs for transplantation
to overcome the shortage in donor organs
we’re facing today in the meantime take
care of the organs you have because we
cannot print them just yet thank you
[Applause] [Music]
not even know yourself you lost an organ
crucial for life and this holds true for
each and every single one of you the
reason why we can sit here and listen to
TED talks is because we had this organ
once in the beginning of our lives I’m
talking about the placenta or afterbirth
throughout the pregnancy the baby is
connected via the umbilical cord to the
placenta which in terms enters into the
uterus of the mother it’s a fascinating
organ and it has versatile functions but
you can imagine it like a filter between
the blood of the mother and the plot of
the baby the placenta ensures that there
are enough nutrients and oxygen getting
through to the baby so it can breathe
and grow and it also functions like a
barrier towards harmful influences
bacteria for example are normally kept
out of the baby circulation to keep it
healthy and although this organ is so
important for a successful pregnancy we
know so little about it and we’re having
a hard time predicting what can actually
pass from the mother’s blood to the baby
what happens when the mother it takes
medication will it reach the baby well
if you belong to the very brave people
who ever read a medication leaflet all
the way from the beginning to the ending
you may have noticed that this read
would have been a lot shorter if you
were pregnant often there’s just one
sentence included saying if you’re
pregnant ask a doctor let me translate
that for you the author basically wants
to tell us that there’s no way
to test substances for the use during
pregnancy now I’ve always been
fascinated by drugs let me rephrase that
I’ve always been super interested in how
active substances act on the human body
because we’re surrounded by them
basically every day and I always wanted
to know more about that and I also
always wanted to help people that’s why
after graduating from high school I went
to work in the rescue service and that
was a great time sometimes I was able to
help people although it felt like most
of the times we had to do paperwork
it was in Germany after all and I also
took the chance to ask my co-workers
about medication and how it works and I
would bug them over and over and in the
beginning they were super happy that I
was interested but eventually they’d
have some important paperwork to do so I
still wanted to know in detail how
substances act and so I studied human
biology where I learned about how the
human body works in health and in
disease how to develop active substances
and how to test them and the answer to
how substances act on the human body is
that it depends on the system you test
them on nowadays it’s a requirement for
medicine to be tested in animals before
they get to the human but we know that
rats are not tiny humans they work
differently and especially when it comes
to pregnancy this is evolutionary scene
the most distant process between humans
and animals so if we want to learn more
about pregnancy
the placenta which develops differently
and looks differently and mice for
example we won’t get far
with animal models now in science we’re
used to complex topics and we break them
down to a simple aspect to start with
and the most simple methods we have in
biological labs to investigate
substances is the so called cell culture
you basically have a petri dish and you
culture human cells on it the cells they
adhere to glass or plastic and in a two
dimensional environment and too often
this model is too simple because in real
organs we have a 3d environment cells
are surrounded by other cells by other
cell types and there’s something which
is called the extracellular matrix
giving the shape to the organ and
holding the cells together so let’s just
call it salut and you can imagine the
consistency like a soft gummy bear and
it’s also very important the cell glue
to give signals to the cells about where
they are and which function they need to
adopt so it’s common sense nowadays in
science that this 3d environment is
necessary for a normal cell function and
for meaningful testing in research now
to learn more about human organs do we
I will tell you something we can now 3d
bio prints human organs it may seem like
science fiction to you but just like the
self ordering diaper the future is here
my team and I developed a 3d printer
with which we can print living
functional biological tissues so what I
do every day is I print the human
placenta and I want to tell you how I do
it so besides the 3d printer I need
three more components I use the cells
that would otherwise grow in a petri
dish I actually use different cell types
as they occur in the real placenta and
then I also need the cell glue giving
the shape in the end and we can actually
produce this cell glue in a liquid form
in our lab and we can then selectively
relate it by the exposure of light and
then I also need to tell the printer in
which shape I want to have the object in
the end so I need to make a 3d computer
model and after doing a lot of research
about how the placenta is build up what
its functions are and what is really
crucial what I need to have in my model
I came up with a 3d model I cannot with
a disc no joke
is the beauty lies in its simplicity so
I introduce all the three components
into the printer I mix the cells into
the liquid cell glue I put it into the
printer and in the printer the liquid is
exposed to light and the shape of the
computer model and this is how the
printing process looks like in the end I
have a little gummy bear with cells in
it and this is my hand
no giant hands and you can see that it’s
pretty small the actual placenta is like
this big maybe but it contains the same
components so it works just like the
real placenta just on a smaller scale
and I’ve been talking about 3d printing
so far probably it would be more
accurate to talk about 40 printing
because now we need another dimension
time after the printing process is
complete I need to make sure that the
cells they feel as if they were in our
body I put them in a nutritious media in
a liquid in its components similar to
the human blood and I keep it at body
temperature 37 degrees and then over
time I see something amazing I see that
the cells they grow and divide and they
interact with their environment and they
actually remodel it that means that
they’re building their own environment
and that is the most natural form you
can have because the cells are the best
how their environment is supposed to be
like and at this point further research
can be conducted
you can now test if a substance can pass
from the one side to the other and what
it does to the tissue in between in this
way you may have a better approximation
what will happen to an unborn if the
mother takes a substance you can also
investigate what happens if pregnant
woman is exposed to particles or
chemicals in her environment or to food
additives and my vision is
to improve healthcare for pregnant women
with 3d bioprinting you could also
investigate what happens for example in
an infection with the Zika virus and in
the best case the 3d bioprinting mini
placenta we’ll be able to eliminate the
one sentence in the medication leaflet
the German way by replacing it with even
more text and now you may ask yourself
how does that impact you because we
figured you’re already lost the placenta
some time ago well in the same way that
we can print a mini placenta we can
print other mini organs which are
important for substance metabolism in
the mom-to-be
but also in you and me and if you think
a little further if today we are already
able to print functional mini organs
what does the future hold
currently science is learning from
printing mini organs what cells need to
function naturally and we’re already
able to print blood vessels which are
important to supply a bigger print with
nutrients so in a few decades doctors
might be able to get back to 3d bio
printed whole organs for transplantation
to overcome the shortage in donor organs
we’re facing today in the meantime take
care of the organs you have because we
cannot print them just yet thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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