Boning up: 3D-printing human replacement parts

I recently shared my thoughts on the synergies between 3D printing and structured light scanning, noting that it’s now easier than ever to reverse-engineer practically anything. Since then, I’ve been thinking about a similar additive manufacturing synergy, one that will eventually make it possible to reverse-engineer humans: Our ability to CT-scan the ill or injured and 3D-print increasingly realistic and functional replacement parts for them.

It’s nothing new. In 2013, I spoke with the CEO of Oxford Performance Materials after he successfully printed the first FDA-approved PEKK patient-specific cranial implant. Doctors then installed that implant in the skull of a young man who’d been in a car accident, plugging a 6-in. hole in the gentleman’s head.

Just today, a quick Google search for “3D printing humans” revealed dozens of similar projects. Human hearts and livers. Bionic eyes and ears. Skin and bone and blood vessels. There’s even Marie, “the first life-sized, 3D-printed human body,” which sounds intriguing until you discover that she’s not only purple as a plum but far from anatomically correct (she’s used to test radiation therapy).

Marie got me thinking, however. How long until all this bioprinting will lead to production of an artificial human? A 3D-printed skeleton, electromechanical drive components (yet another additive manufacturing frontier), an integrated vision system, all surrounded by a skin-like covering. It might sound farfetched, but it wasn’t so long ago that 3D printing was equally improbable.

Fans of the movie Terminator know what I’m talking about here. And, coincidentally, filmmaker James Cameron was shooting the first part of that epic movie series right about the time that 3D printing pioneer Chuck Hull began experimenting with photocurable resins. Neither man had any idea back then that machines might one day print cybernetic organisms, and it’s sadly evident in the final scene (spoiler alert) that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s robotic skeleton was made via traditional manufacturing methods.

Don’t get me wrong—I’m not suggesting anyone should print terminators; quite the contrary. Mastering such technology would mean easy access to replacement parts for all humans, and if there were a way to transfer the electromagnetic energy inside our brains—the id, soul, psyche, or whatever it is that makes us self-aware—into a 3D-printed host, we might live forever (as in another classic movie, CHAPPiE).

I’m not holding out hope for that in my lifetime, but I wouldn’t mind having someone around the house to pick up the dog poop, take out the trash, and dust the furniture (my three most eagerly avoided chores). And when all that is done, my Schwarzenegger house-droid (or better yet, one that closely resembles the cyborg assassin from Rise of the Machines) might want to watch a movie with me on Saturday night. I heard the last Terminator wasn’t too bad.