Cosmonaut aboard the ISS 3D prints human tissue for the first time

Here is one of those sentences that somehow feels futuristic and retro all at the same time: Up on the International Space Station, a Russian cosmonaut has 3D printed human tissue. Here’s more from SlashGear:

The cosmonaut used a magnetic levitation device created by Russian researchers to fabricate human cartilage from a few isolated cells. The scientists say that the work could lead to new techniques for regenerating tissues during long-term spaceflight…. Traditional tissue engineering involves seeding cells onto biocompatible “scaffolds,” which biodegrade once the tissues have assembled themselves into 3D organs. There are newer and more flexible approaches that don’t require the scaffold emerging. These techniques allow cells to assemble themselves without the need for a structural biomaterial.

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