Harvard Researchers Just 3-D Printed a Synthetic Heart

The heart-on-a-chip is entirely 3-D printed with built-in sensors that measure the contractile strength of the tissue, providing scientists with new possibilities for studying the musculature of the heart (Johan Lind, Michael Rosnach, Disease Biophysics Group/Lori K. Sanders, Lewis Lab/Harvard University)

Optimism about 3-D printing’s impact on the medical field has been validated by the production of the first heart-on-a-chip.

Built by Harvard University researchers, who published their results in Nature Materials, the chip is a synthetic heart replacement that has been integrated with sensors, which collect data about cardiac tissue development and maturation in a noninvasive and readable way. This last detail is crucial, because according to Dr. Johan Ulrik Lind, “there has been a lack of easy, noninvasive ways to measure the tissue functional performance.” Lind, a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (or SEAS), goes on to say that “these integrated sensors allow researchers to continuously collect data while tissues mature … [and] similarly, they will enable studies of gradual effects of chronic exposure to toxins.”

The heart-on-a-chip is made entirely using multi-material 3-D printing in a single automated procedure, integrating six custom printing inks at micrometer resolution (Lori K. Sanders and Alex D. Valentine, Lewis Lab/Harvard University)

Researchers also hope that organs-on-a-chip will replace animal testing as the primary method of observing synthetic tissue implants, and this Harvard research is a beacon of light on that front. Their heart chip was made with a fully automated, digital production process that is cheaper and much less labor-intensive than prior manufacturing methods, and could be an important step towards creating organs on demand for patients who can’t wait for donors.

Below is a short video from SEAS about the chip and its manufacturing process.