{"id":67716,"date":"2025-11-03T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/?p=67716"},"modified":"2025-10-31T15:07:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T14:07:30","slug":"3dendofab-3d-printing-biological-tissues-inside-the-human-body-031120254","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/3dendofab-3d-printing-biological-tissues-inside-the-human-body-031120254\/","title":{"rendered":"3DEndoFab: 3D Printing Biological Tissues Inside the Human Body"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine if one day we could print biological tissue directly inside the human body. It sounds crazy, but perhaps it is not as futuristic as it seems. Dr. Andrea Toulouse of the Institute of Applied Optics at the University of Stuttgart has just received \u20ac1.8 million in funding from the Carl Zeiss Foundation as part of the CZS Nexus program to accelerate her research on this issue. She will set up a research group, called 3DEndoFab, to design a micro 3D printer that could directly create tissue inside the body. It’s easy to imagine all the constraints that this micro-machine may represent, but this topic will undoubtedly have a considerable impact on the medical sector.<\/a><\/p>\n

Printing skin,<\/a> cartilage, tissue, or other cellular structures is now possible, and applications are rapidly multiplying. However, there are currently no solutions that allow printing directly inside the body, thereby eliminating all the challenges associated with implanting the printed structure. This is often the problem. This is what Dr. Andrea Toulouse hopes to solve. She is using the principle of endoscopy to design a very fine 3D printer that could be inserted into our bodies and create tissue directly on site so that it can perform its full function.<\/p>\n

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Andrea Toulouse and her team are conducting research into high-resolution 3D printing using light-based processes (photo credit: University of Stuttgart \/ Uli Regenscheit)<\/p><\/div>\n

The project is called \u201c3D Endoscopic Microfabrication<\/em>\u201d or 3DEndoFab. Andrea Toulouse explains: \u201cOur group aims to develop a 3D-printed micro-optic, no larger than a grain of salt, that can be positioned on the tip of a glass fiber. There, it will shape light in such a way that even complex tissue structures can be printed in 3D with micrometer resolution, i.e., on the scale of human cells,\u201d<\/em><\/p>

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The team is therefore conducting various research projects on light-based 3D printing. They are working to combine laser light with an optical fiber, the tip of which would be the micro-3D printer. It’s hard to picture, but this would mean that the solution could be injected into the skin, much like a needle. How will the printing process be controlled? How will the bioinks<\/a> be “administered?” Will the method remain non-invasive? Many questions remain, and we are eager to learn more about the progress of this project.<\/p>\n

Note that 3DEndoFab is interdisciplinary: Andrea Toulouse will integrate her team into the new Bionic Intelligence T\u00fcbingen Stuttgart (BITS) research network to facilitate the transition to clinical applications. This project combines engineering and biotechnology and demonstrates how additive manufacturing can revolutionize the medicine of tomorrow. You can find more information HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What do you think of 3DEndoFab? Let us know in a comment below or on our\u00a0LinkedIn<\/span><\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0<\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>\u00a0<\/span>pages! Plus, don\u2019t forget to sign up for our free weekly\u00a0<\/span>Newsletter<\/span><\/a>\u00a0to get the latest 3D printing news straight to your inbox. You can also find all our videos on our\u00a0<\/span>YouTube<\/span><\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/span>\u00a0Interested in more medical and dental 3D printing news? Visit our dedicated page\u00a0HERE<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

*Cover Photo: The researchers use a very thin optical fiber for 3D printing. The image shows the fiber in comparison to a pencil lead.(Credits: University of Stuttgart \/ ITO \/ Andrea Toulouse \/ Marco Wende)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine if one day we could print biological tissue directly inside the human body. It sounds crazy, but perhaps it is not as futuristic as it seems. Dr. Andrea Toulouse of the Institute of Applied Optics at the University of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6114,"featured_media":67725,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-medical","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67726,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67716\/revisions\/67726"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}