Ideas worth spreading

Printing a human kidney

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Anthony Atala |

TED2011

• March 2011

(NOTE: This talk was given in 2011, and this field of science has developed quickly since then. Read "Corrections & Updates" below for more details.) Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage.

(NOTE: This talk was given in 2011, and this field of science has developed quickly since then. Read "Corrections & Updates" below for more details.) Surgeon Anthony Atala demonstrates an early-stage experiment that could someday solve the organ-donor problem: a 3D printer that uses living cells to output a transplantable kidney. Using similar technology, Dr. Atala's young patient Luke Massella received an engineered bladder 10 years ago; we meet him onstage.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.

About the speaker

Anthony Atala

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Anthony Atala asks, "Can we grow organs instead of transplanting them?" His lab at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is doing just that -- engineering over 30 tissues and whole organs.

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This talk was presented at an official TED conference. TED's editors chose to feature it for you.