Researchers at Rice University and University of Pennsylvania have developed a 3D Printed Implant with an intricate network of blood vessels using sugar and silicone. This implant will deliver oxygen and nutrients to all cells in an artificial organ or tissue implant and thereby, helping them grow despite body liability to supply them.

New York state resident Theresa Flint was diagnosed with an aneurysm but it became worse when surgery couldn't be done due to complications. Stratasys, leading 3D printing production, helped the surgeons develop 3D model of cerebral vessels of Flint and a successful brain surgery.

New York-based medical company, Vascular Simulations with help from Stratasys, has been utilizing 3D Printed Models to enhance the training and treatment methods for dealing with cardiovascular disease. To create 3D printed models, Vascular Simulations uses imaging data from CT scans or MRIs and converts them into silicone models with Stratasys Dimension Elite 3D Printer.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University have been harnessing cotton candy machines to spin out threads similar in size, density and complexity to the patterns formed by biocapillaries. Already announced that they have succeeded in using this unorthodox technique to produce a 3D artificial capillary system, they are working on fiber networks that can be used as templates to produce the capillary systems required to create full-scale artificial organs.

The Four Universities are working their own way to develop 3D Printing for medical uses and these include Indiana University-layering by applying a viscous bio-ink; Wake Forest University- Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP), which deposits biodegradables to form the tissue's shape, and water-based gels that contain the cells; Pennsylvania State University- artificial cartilage produced by the team is very similar to native cow cartilage and lastly, Advanced Solutions Life Sciences working with capillary beds, which they can flow blood through in the lab.

Two professors at Northwestern’s McCormick School of Engineering, Guillermo Ameer and Cheng Sun, have developed a method of 3D printing patient-specific vascular stents that are both flexible and biodegradable. These 3D printed stents can be pre-loaded with drugs that are released at site of implant, shortening the healing process in the walls of blood vessels. Meanwhile the unique polymer material allows the stent to exercise its mechanical function during the vessel’s initial dilation but slowly dissolve as the re-opened blood vessel recovers.

The Institute for Development of Advanced Applied Systems (IRNAS), located in Slovenia, operates Symbiolab, an open source-based biolab that focuses on the development of future-proof 3D biofabrication. The company developed Vitaprint, an open source platform which has now been used by IRNAS to fabricate 3D Printed Blood Vessels into a human earlobe using the freeform perfusable vessel and channel systems into bio-compatible hydrogels.

A team of researchers in tissue engineering, 3D biofabrication, biomaterials design and stem cell differentiation at Harvard’s Wyss Institute is working on 3D Printing a Functioning Kidney Subunit with current work to build branched vascular network unique to each organ. Using advanced 3D Bioprinting from Wyss Institute, Dr. Jennifer Lewis’s organ-on-chips are ready, using special polymer inks for creation of structures made up of human cells, complete with vasculatures and extracellular matrices.