Military Technology

Chapter 2951 Artificial cornea bio-printing system

【Revision】

Having said that, this approach is still controversial and carries risks after all. Whether to continue waiting for corneal resources or risk using this technology depends on the decision of the patient and his family.

As technology providers, Wu Hao and others will not deliberately cover up or ignore the risks of this technology, nor will they exaggerate the therapeutic effects of this technology. They just raised questions, and it is up to the patients and their families to decide how to answer them.

After giving everyone some time to digest the information, Wu Hao continued: "With the cells, we can clone them. However, cultivating these corneal cells is not easy. There are many problems, the biggest of which is Corneal cells are prone to liquefaction. This problem has troubled us for a long time.

In order to solve this problem, we organized relevant technical experts to conduct a long-term special attack. After tens of thousands of experiments, we finally solved this problem.

Briefly, we modified the clonal culture environment to adapt it to the cultivation of these corneal cells. First, we solved the problem of light, because the damage of light to these transparent cells is huge.

Because of this, some of the transparent creatures we see either live in deep caves and cannot see sunlight all year round, or they live in the ocean thousands of meters deep, where sunlight cannot reach that depth.

These transparent creatures are able to survive because they cannot survive once exposed to sunlight. The same goes for corneal cells. They are very fragile in the initial cultivation and growth stage, and will be damaged and liquefied when exposed to a little bright light.

Therefore, the entire clonal cultivation process is actually carried out in a low-wave light environment, which is conducive to the clonal cultivation of these corneal cells.

After obtaining enough corneal clone cells, the next step is printing. However, our existing bio-3D printers cannot meet the printing process of corneal tissue. Therefore, we have re-engineered the bio-3D printer to improve printing accuracy and stability.

In addition, we have added an artificial intelligence system to the biological 3D printer, which can monitor the status of the printed tissue in real time and make adjustments, thereby greatly shortening the printing time, improving printing efficiency, and improving the quality of the corneal tissue.

In addition, we have also optimized and upgraded the entire printing chamber. The printing chamber of previous biological 3D printers was designed after the biological placenta to maximize the freshness and activity of the printed organ tissues so that they can survive for a long time.

However, on this corneal bio-3D printer, we have re-optimized the printing chamber and provided a very good environment for the printed corneal tissue by controlling temperature, humidity, pH value, etc. to ensure its activity. "

Speaking of this, Wu Hao showed a hint of helplessness and said: "Even so, the entire printing process still faces many difficulties.

Because the cornea is very thin, the normal corneal thickness is generally between 0.5~0.55mm and 0.7~1.0mm. Even the final corneal thickness is only one millimeter, compared with about half a millimeter for a normal cornea.

In such a thin cornea, it is divided into epithelial cell layer, elastic layer, stromal layer, Descemet's layer and endothelial cell layer. In addition, the cornea is rich in sensory nerve endings and capillaries. How to achieve so many layers in such a small thickness requires very high printing accuracy.

However, this will greatly reduce the printing speed, which is absolutely unacceptable. Because the corneal tissue has a high water content, if the printing time is too long, even if preservation measures are taken, the activity of the corneal tissue will be greatly reduced and the light transmittance of the cornea will be affected, thereby affecting the vision recovery after transplantation.

Therefore, the entire printing time must be shortened, preferably within ten hours.

To this end, we designed a new cell printing nozzle with five sub-nozzles, each of which can work independently. During the printing process, these five nozzles can work alternately according to the needs of different cells in the organ tissue, each performing its own duties. This design changes the previous dual-nozzle design and greatly improves the printing speed.

In addition, the five-nozzle design can also edit the printing program independently and adjust it according to the arrangement order of organ tissue cells. That is, we can print five layers at a time without printing in layers. In this way, the quality of printed organs and tissues is greatly improved, and the printing time is further shortened.

The addition of artificial intelligence systems can detect the quality of printed tissue in real time. Once a problem or flaw is detected, the print can be reprinted at any time, rather than waiting until the end of the print to discover a flaw that would result in the entire finished product being scrapped.

After a series of transformations, optimizations and repeated experiments, we finally developed this 3D biological printer specifically for corneal tissue printing and a supporting corneal cell culture cloning system. "

"With this complete system, we will next conduct relevant experiments. In view of the successful experience we have accumulated in bio-3D printing technology, once this technology passes the safety test and evaluation, we will quickly put it into clinical use. test.

There were a total of thirty patients in the first phase of the clinical trial. For twenty-nine of them, we successfully extracted their corneal cells for cloning and culture, and then printed artificial biological corneas for surgical transplantation.

The operation was a complete success. Twenty-nine of the thirty people regained their sight, and their vision reached a relatively ideal state.

As for the remaining patient, a serious infection occurred after the operation, which led to the failure of the surgical transplant.

Subsequently, we followed up and observed six months after the operation. We found that the vision recovery of these 29 people achieved our expected results and basically restored normal vision. The first phase of the clinical trial was initially successful. "

In view of the success of the first phase of clinical trials, we are full of confidence in this corneal bioprinting technology and are organizing a larger second phase of clinical trials.

The second phase of clinical trials initially plans to recruit 500 patients around the world. We will cooperate with major hospitals and continue to use corneal cell cloning culture and biological 3D printing technology to customize personalized artificial biological corneas for patients.

And before the start of the second phase of the experiment, we further optimized the problems existing in the first phase of the clinical trial. At the same time, we strengthened the monitoring and control of corneal cell culture to ensure that the printed biological corneal tissue has Higher quality and activity.

At the same time, the surgical treatment process is re-optimized and improved based on the characteristics of the printed artificial biological corneal tissue, which greatly improves the success rate of the surgery.