Your liver is working hard everyday to keep you ticking by storing energy, pumping out hormones, and filtering toxins from the blood. That last function might be the most significant, though. Without a working liver, dangerous metabolites build up to toxic levels in the bloodstream in mere days. Researchers from the University of California have developed a technique that might be able to replicate this essential function of the liver using nanotechnology and a type of nanoscale 3D printing.
It has long been known that nanoparticles can be designed to bind and remove toxins in the human bloodstream, essentially taking over for the liver in that capacity. However, the health impacts of nanoparticles are still unclear, and it is believed that nanoparticles themselves could build up in the organs, causing secondary poisoning. The team avoided this issue entirely by confining the nanoparticles to a 3D printed hydrogel matrix outside the body, making it a bit like dialysis.
A patient with reduced liver function could have their blood routed through this external device where the nanoparticles attract and capture toxic particles. The 3D printed matrix is designed to mimic the structure of the liver to efficiently filter out toxins, but it also has much higher surface area than the real thing. This opens the door to making the external device much smaller than the patient’s real liver, and thus portable. The team has so far tested a proof of concept version of this technology in the lab. In this test, the matrix was able to completely eliminate the virulence of pore-forming toxins in solution.
Work is ongoing to improve, and possibly commercialize the technology. The specialized 3D printing process might be one of the more difficult parts to scale up. It relies on extremely precise optical projection stereolithography to illuminate tiny areas of light-sensitive polymers, which then solidify in the desired structure. The University of California researchers believe this process could one day allow highly specific on-site fabrication of detoxification devices.