Industry Deep-Dive · 3D Printing

The Machines That Print
Living Things

A 3D printer at our shop lays down molten plastic. A bioprinter lays down living cells — and then the print keeps changing after it leaves the machine, because the cells grow, fuse, and organize. That difference is the whole field. Here's an honest tour of who's building these machines, what they're printing — tissue, meat, even microbes — and how far it's actually gotten.

Living cells · cultivated meat · bioprinting in orbit

4Frontiers: tissue, food, space, microbes

2022First bioprinted ear in a human

ISSLive tissue printed in orbit

0Full organs transplanted (so far)

What makes it "bio"

Conventional 3D printing builds with inert raw materials — plastic, resin, metal. Bioprinting builds with bioink: living cells suspended in a soft, biocompatible hydrogel that protects them through the nozzle. The printer deposits that ink layer by layer into a 3D shape, and then the real work begins — the construct moves to a bioreactor where the cells are fed, kept warm, and given time to grow, connect, and mature into something tissue-like. The print is the starting point, not the finished object.

The part most people miss: after printing, the cells keep living and growing. That's why it's "bio."

Who makes the machines — and what they print

A handful of companies dominate the hardware and the headlines. Here are the major players and the platforms they're known for.

CELLINK (BICO Group)

The company that arguably mainstreamed lab bioprinting. Sweden-based CELLINK released a widely-cited "universal" bioink in 2016 and sells extrusion bioprinters — the BIO X line is its best-known machine — used across hundreds of research labs to print tissue models and study disease.

Organovo (now VivoSim Labs)

A pioneer of scaffold-free human tissue. Its NovoGen platform builds multicellular liver and other tissues used as 3D disease models for drug testing — the kind of work that informed a drug program later acquired by Eli Lilly. The focus here is less "print an organ" and more "print human tissue good enough to test medicines on."

Aspect Biosystems

This Canadian company prints implantable "bioprinted tissue therapeutics" using a microfluidic printhead (its RX1 platform). Its most-watched program, partnered with Novo Nordisk, aims to print pancreas-like tissue that produces insulin — a potential route to treating diabetes without daily injections.

3D Systems

A 3D-printing giant that moved into bio by acquiring Allevi and launching Systemic Bio for vascularized organ models. Through its "Print to Perfusion" work with United Therapeutics, it's pursuing one of the field's hardest goals: organ-scale lung scaffolds.

Cyfuse, 3DBio/PrintBio & others

Japan's Cyfuse Biomedical uses a distinctive scaffold-free "Kenzan" method — skewering cell spheroids on a fine needle array (its Regenova system) so they fuse into tubular tissues like blood vessels. New York's 3DBio Therapeutics (now PrintBio) made the milestone everyone cites: a living, 3D-printed ear. Others worth knowing include Poietis (laser-assisted printing) and Auxilium Biotechnologies, whose AMP-1 printer has run in space.

Company	Device / platform	What it prints	Living cells?
CELLINK (BICO)	BIO X series + bioinks	Research tissue models	Yes
VivoSim Labs (ex-Organovo)	NovoGen	Liver & disease-model tissues	Yes
Aspect Biosystems	RX1 (microfluidic)	Implantable tissue therapeutics	Yes
3D Systems	Systemic Bio, Print to Perfusion	Vascularized models, lung scaffolds	Yes
Cyfuse Biomedical	Regenova (Kenzan)	Scaffold-free vessels & tubes	Yes
3DBio / PrintBio	Proprietary platform	Living ear implant (in-human)	Yes
Redwire	BioFabrication Facility (ISS)	Tissue in microgravity	Yes
Aleph Farms	BioFarm platform	Cultivated beef	Yes
Steakholder Foods	Cultivated-meat bioprinters	Structured meat & hybrids	Yes

How far has it actually gotten?

This is where honesty matters, because the headlines run ahead of the science. The genuine clinical milestone so far is an ear: in 2022, 3DBio printed a living ear from a patient's own cartilage cells and a surgeon implanted it in a first-in-human trial for microtia. An ear is achievable partly because cartilage is relatively simple — no blood supply to keep alive. Solid organs are vastly harder, because they need dense networks of blood vessels to survive at any real thickness, and that vascularization problem is the field's central wall.

Nobody has printed a transplantable heart, kidney, or liver. The cartilage of an ear is the furthest this has gone into a person.

What's real today: human tissue models for drug testing (sold and used now), small tissue patches and implant candidates in trials, organ-scale scaffolds being matured toward function, and a lot of serious, well-funded research. What's not real yet: printing a whole, complex organ and transplanting it. Treat anyone claiming otherwise with skepticism.

Printing food that used to be alive

The same idea jumped to the kitchen — and here the user's distinction matters, because "3D-printed meat" means two very different things.

Cultivated (cell-based) meat is the living version. Aleph Farms, working with Israel's Technion, printed a ribeye from real cow cells — non-GMO, non-immortalized living cells that are printed into shape and then incubated so muscle and fat grow and organize, marbling and all. Steakholder Foods (formerly MeaTech 3D) builds bioprinters specifically to give cultivated meat realistic structure and texture. Russia's 3D Bioprinting Solutions has printed cell-based meat too — including, famously, aboard the space station.

Not the same: plant-based "3D-printed meat"

Companies like Redefine Meat and Novameat also 3D-print convincing "steaks," but those are extruded from plant proteins — raw materials shaped by a printer, not living cells that grow. Impressive food tech, but it's printing with ingredients, not biology. The living-cell route is the one that's truly bioprinting.

Why some of this happens in space

One of the field's quietest surprises: bioprinting may work better in orbit. On Earth, soft printed tissue tends to sag and needs a scaffold to hold its shape while it matures. In microgravity it can hold a 3D form on its own. Redwire's BioFabrication Facility (BFF) aboard the ISS has printed living human heart tissue (returned to Earth in 2024) and a knee meniscus, using bioinks mixed with living cells. Auxilium Biotechnologies printed a vascular network in orbit with its AMP-1 printer, and Russia's magnetic Organ.Aut ran the first bioprinting experiments in space back in 2018. The long-term pitch is bold: print tissues — and eventually organs, and even cultured meat — where gravity isn't fighting you.

Beyond human cells: printing living organisms

Tissue and meat use animal cells, but a growing research frontier prints microorganisms — bacteria, microalgae, and fungi — embedded live in printed hydrogels to make "engineered living materials." These aren't about medicine; they put microbes to work. Researchers have printed engineered E. coli into wearable living sensors, photosynthetic algae into materials that capture carbon, and bacteria-laden structures that break down pollutants for environmental cleanup. It's mostly university-stage today — Texas A&M, Zhejiang University, and others — but it's the most science-fiction corner of the field: objects that are alive, that metabolize, sense, and self-repair.

The honest summary

Bioprinting is real, funded, and producing genuine results — usable tissue models, a living ear, cultivated steak, tissue grown in orbit, living microbial materials. It is also years to decades from printing a transplant-ready organ. Both things are true at once, and the gap between them is where most of the hype lives.

Where Dreaming3D fits (and where we don't)

Straight talk: we don't bioprint. We're a San Diego FDM and resin shop — we print plastic and resin, not living cells, and we'd never pretend otherwise. But if your work lives near this world — anatomical models for surgical planning and education, enclosure and fixture parts for a lab, prototype housings for biotech hardware, or display models of cells and molecules — that's squarely what we do, dialed-in and fast.

📞 858-342-6984 (call or text)
✉ dreaming3dprinting@gmail.com
📍 3880 Valley Centre Dr, San Diego
🌐 dreaming3d.net

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between 3D printing and bioprinting?

Regular 3D printing builds with inert materials like plastic, resin, or metal. Bioprinting builds with bioink — living cells in a protective hydrogel — and the printed object then grows and matures in a bioreactor. The output is biological and alive, not a fixed solid part.

Which companies make bioprinters?

Major names include CELLINK (BICO Group), Organovo (now VivoSim Labs), Aspect Biosystems, 3D Systems, and Cyfuse Biomedical for medical tissue; 3DBio/PrintBio for implants; Redwire for in-space printing; and Aleph Farms and Steakholder Foods on the cultivated-meat side.

Can you 3D print a human organ yet?

Not a whole, transplantable organ. The furthest clinical milestone is a living 3D-printed ear (a cartilage structure) implanted in a 2022 trial. Solid organs need dense blood-vessel networks to survive, and solving that vascularization problem is the field's biggest unsolved challenge.

Is 3D-printed meat made of living cells?

It depends. Cultivated meat from companies like Aleph Farms and Steakholder Foods is printed from real living animal cells that then grow into muscle and fat. Plant-based "3D-printed meat" (Redefine Meat, Novameat) is extruded from plant proteins — shaped by a printer but not living. Only the cell-based version is true bioprinting.

Why would anyone bioprint in space?

In microgravity, soft printed tissue holds its 3D shape without a support scaffold and can mature more evenly. Redwire's BioFabrication Facility on the ISS has printed living human heart tissue and other samples, with the long-term goal of producing tissues — and eventually organs — that benefit patients on Earth.

Can you really print with bacteria or algae?

Yes, in research settings. Scientists embed live bacteria, algae, or fungi into printed hydrogels to make "engineered living materials" — for example living biosensors, carbon-capturing photosynthetic materials, and pollution-degrading structures. It's largely university-stage today rather than a commercial product.

Does Dreaming3D do bioprinting?

No — we're an FDM and resin printing shop in San Diego, so we print plastic and resin, not living cells. We're happy to help with adjacent work like anatomical models, lab fixtures and enclosures, and biotech hardware prototypes. For bioprinting itself, you'd want a specialized lab or one of the platforms above.

Need conventional printing done right?

We'll leave the living cells to the labs — and handle your FDM and resin prints, anatomical models, and prototypes with the same care. San Diego local, shipping worldwide.

The Machines That Print Living Things