美国科研人员致力于打印活体组织替代品

    From VOA Learning English, this is the Technology Report.
    这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

    Three-dimensional printers are fast becoming everyday devices in the United States. Three-D printers are used to make everything from automobile parts to bone replacements for human patients. American research scientists are now working on creating replacements for living tissue.
    3D打印机正迅速成为美国的日常设备。3D打印机被用于打印从汽车零部件到人体骨骼替代品等等一切物品。美国科研人员目前正在研究制造活体组织的替代品。

    Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina have been working on creating and manufacturing living tissue since 2003. This process is called biofabrication. It requires special printing equipment and a special kind of ink.
    自2003年以来,南卡罗来纳医科大学的研究人员一直致力于制造活体组织。这一过程被称之为生物构造。它需要特种打印设备和特种墨水。

    Traditional printers require ink to produce an image or design on a piece of paper. For their three-D printer, the South Carolina researchers prepare complex nutritious solutions they call bio-inks. Bio-inks are made of proteins and glucose, which normally provides energy for most cells of the body. The researchers also add living cells taken from the animal that will receive the new, printed tissue. The bio-inks are then added to a device that researchers call the Palmetto bio-printer.
    传统打印机需要墨水在纸上打印图像或设计。南卡罗来纳医科大学的研究人员为他们的3D打印机准备了复杂的营养解决方案,他们称之为生物墨水。生物墨水由蛋白质和糖组成,它们为人体大部分细胞提供能量。研究人员还添加了取自动物身上的活体细胞,这些活体细胞将接受打印出来的新组织。这种生物墨水然后被加到研究人员称之为棕榈生物打印机的设备中。

    Sarah Grace Dennis is one of the researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina. She says new technology, like the Palmetto bio-printer, is a great help to the biofabrication process.
    莎拉·格雷斯·丹尼斯(Sarah Grace Dennis)是南卡罗来纳医科大学的研究人员之一。她说棕榈生物打印机这类新技术对生物构造过程有很大的帮助。

    "When I got here a year ago, we were printing a-cellular bio-inks to see if patterns could be printed. And now we are printing skeletal muscle replica implants that we have been implanting into rats."
    “当我一年前到这里时,我们在用生物墨水打印细胞,想看看结构是否能够被打印出来。现在我们正在打印要植入到老鼠身上的骨骼肌仿生植入物。”

    The bio-inks are placed in three dispensers, containers, inside the printer. Lasers control both the position of the printing surface and the places where the bio-ink is released.
    生物墨水被放到打印机内部的三个分液器中。激光同时控制着打印表面的位置,以及生物墨水被释放的地点。

    Michael Yost is a leader of the research team. He says the printing process is fully automated - - machine-operated. He says that the Palmetto bio-printer makes it possible to create complex tissue types.
    迈克尔·约斯特(Michael Yost)是这个研究小组的负责人。他说,这一打印过程是机器全自动操作。他说,棕榈生物打印机使得制造复杂的组织类型成为可能。

    "And with our 3-D bio-printer, we have been able to create new microvascular networks that we can then grow new tissues in very key areas such as pancreas, liver and kidney."
    “依靠我们的3D生物打印机,我们已经能够制造新的微血管网络,然后我们能够在非常关键的部位,像胰腺、肝脏和肾脏里种出新的组织。”

    The researchers say bio-printing is still experimental. But they hope in a few years they may be able to print tissue to replace damaged human organs.
    这些研究人员表示,生物打印仍然是实验性的。但他们希望未来数年内他们能够打印出组织用来替代受损的人体器官。

    But there are still concerns with biofabrication. Some scientists worry about how to get blood to the replacement tissue. The flow of blood is important to keeping the printed tissue alive.
    但是现在人们对生物构造尚有疑虑。一些科学家担心如何让血液进入替代组织中。血流对保持打印组织存活非常重要。

    Michael Yost hopes that more people will believe in the benefits of biofabrication.
    约斯特希望更多人认可生物构造的好处。

    "Tissue biofabrication is a reality, and it is a reality now, and if you come here and you get to see it. You will get to see it. You can not touch it, but you will see it and think this is real. And this is really human."
    “组织生物构造现在已成现实。如果你来这里就能看到一切。你没法触摸它,但你能看到它,并认为它是真正的人体组织。”

    And that's the Technology Report from VOA Learning English. I'm Jonathan Evans.
    以上就是本期美国之音慢速英语科技报道的全部内容。我是乔纳森·埃文斯(Jonathan Evans)。(51VOA.COM对本文翻译保留全部权利,未经授权请勿转载,违者必究!)