When I take a look at how much has changed in the world during my lifetime alone, I can’t help but marvel at the pace of advancements in technology that we are witnessing.

Seriously, just take a moment and look back at the time when you were a child and how general life used to be back then and contrast to what it is now. You will notice a world of difference.

We are always so busy with your eyes on the future that we seldom take the time to consider how far we have already come and boy, have we come far! When I was a child, the internet was still not mainstream in my country and even in many of the developed nations and look at how it has changed the world today.

None of the areas that we have put our minds to have remained unchanged. Take medical science for example. Things that seemed impossible are taken for granted today! We are increasingly assuming more control of our health, life expectancy and quality of living thanks to so many medical breakthroughs.

Artificial Organs To Make Organ Transplant Obsolete

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people go through a transplant surgery where the organs of a different person are placed into their body, which saves their lives. But more recently, there has been a major shortage of organs and so many people lose their lives waiting for an organ.

The thing is, most of the times, for an organ to be available, the organ donor has to die, especially for organs like the heart. But due to better medical facilities these days, people’s life expectancy are much higher than before and so the organs are not available on time.

Also, due to advancements in other fields, like self driving cars, road accidents will increasingly become a thing of the past, which is a major reason people lose their lives today and hence their organs become available.

Therefore, scientists have been hard at work for a long time to be able to print the organs that are needed, as and when required so there is simply no waiting. They’re trying to make it as easy as simply buying medicines!

If they have their way, we could see organ transplants become obsolete in just six years as the technology is already here and is being refined for manufacturing more complex organs like the heart and kidneys.

Artificial Organs That Can Be Manufactured

So, by now you must be wondering which organs we can manufacture artificially. Well, there are many ways scientists are exploring to grow these organs. One way is by the way of using stem cells to grow organs in a lab which is showing promising results lately.

The other one is 3D bioprinting. Yes, it is a variant of 3D printing which is yet another revolutionary technology set to change the world in the future. Anyways, scientists are able to print the organs using the particular cell type in a three dimensional shape.

Right now they have been able to print functional human skin, thyroid gland, tibia and also a patch of beating heart cells (not the entire heart), blood vessels and bladder.

In the coming decades (most optimistic predictions say six years), we will be able to print more complex organs like the heart, kidney, liver and pancreas.

Can you imagine a future where for one person to survive, another need not die? A future where if your organ fails, you won’t fear losing your life because you would simply be able to ‘order’ a new one? Right now this might seem to futuristic, but technology has a way of bringing the future to now, really quickly.