At Instructables.com, an instructable by BioCurious appeared that attracted a lot of attention: a DIY BioPrinter. Bioprinting is printing with biological cell materials. Think of it as 3D printing, but with squishier ingredients: human tissue!
This looks like a must-have for our Open Wetlab. You can build one for the incredibly low cost of USD$ 150. Simply acquire the necessary parts and follow all the assembly steps. This hack involves combining parts from a leftover inkjet printer, used CD drive, inkShield and an Arduino to control the device. After completion, you'll be able to print living cells in 2D patterns, as you can see above.
Unfortunately there is no Z-axis on this machine, but we imagine that would introduce spectacular complexities beyond the machine itself: What 3D living structures would you print? How do you model them? How do you store and deliver multiple kinds of cells required for complex living structures? And so on.
Nevertheless, it's a real BioPrinter and you can have one on your desk. Be a pioneer.
Read the Instructable, available under a CC-license.
