Russian Bioprinter Destroyed in Soyuz MS-10 Failure

As 3D Printing Industry reports, when the Soyuz MS-10 spaceflight exploded, the Organ.Aut 3D bioprinter was destroyed. Luckily, the two Russian cosmonauts aboard the vehicle used an emergency escape capsule and survived.

The Organ.Aut 3D bioprinter “was tipped to be the first of its kind to make it aboard the International Space Station (ISS).” Developed by 3D Bioprinting Solutions (an arm of INVITRO) in Moscow, the Organ.Aut was “one of the most multifunctional bioprinters in the world in terms of printing possibilities with different materials…the system seems to fabricate tissues from cell containing spheroids. The bioprinter relied on a gelatinous (possibly hydrogel) bed, to hold deposited spheres of biological matter in place. After each printed layer, the supportive gel was replenished to hold the next layer of spheres and so on until the desired shape was created. When incubated, these cells fused together, then gel was cleaned away leaving a sample of purely biological tissue.”

Now, however, as 3D Bioprinting Solutions Co-Founder and Managing Director Yousef Hesuani reports, “Organ.Aut and the cosmonauts have a duplicate [of the printer], it will be ready to fly to the ISS in the near future. The current crew has already confirmed its readiness for undergoing the remote training, so we will be ready to send the scientific equipment in any case.”

In the meantime, while an investigation is undergone to determine what went wrong on the Soyuz MS-10 spaceflight, this might mean NASA’s 3D BioFabrication Facility will become the first bioprinter to actually reach the International Space Station – in February of 2019.