MakerBot Stories | Feinstein Institute for Medical Research

What if doctors could grow you a new windpipe from your own cartilage cells? A team of surgeons and scientists at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research has grown cartilage on a scaffolding made from ordinary MakerBot PLA Filament.

MakerBot provided the Feinstein Institute with a MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental 3D Printer, which has two extruders. Lead researcher Todd Goldstein converted it into a low-cost bioprinter by replacing one extruder with a syringe that dispenses the chondrocyte-collagen “bio-ink.”