In a glimmer of hope to thousands of people born with hearing deformity, scientists have created an artificial ear, using 3-D printing and injectable moulds, that looks and acts like a natural ear.

Cornell biomedical engineers and Weill Cornell Medical College physicians have described how 3-D printing and injectable gels made of living cells can fashion ears that are practically identical to a human ear, the Science Daily reported.

Over a three-month period, these flexible ears grew cartilage to replace the collagen that was used to mould them.

“This is such a win-win for both medicine and basic science, demonstrating what we can achieve when we work together,” co-lead author Lawrence Bonassar said.

In the study published in PLOS One , this novel ear claims to be the solution reconstructive surgeons have waited for to help children with congenital deformity called microtia.

“A bio-engineered ear replacement like this would also help individuals who have lost part or all of their external ear in an accident or of cancer,” co-lead author Jason Spector said. Replacement ears are usually constructed with materials that have a Styrofoam-like consistency, or sometimes, surgeons build ears from a patient’s harvested rib.

This option is challenging and painful for children, and the ears rarely look completely natural or perform well, Spector said.

To make the ears, Bonassar and colleagues started with a digitised 3-D image of a human subject’s ear, and converted the image into a digitised “solid” ear using a 3-D printer to assemble a mould.

This Cornell-developed, high-density gel is similar to the consistency of Jell-o when the mould is removed. The collagen served as a scaffold upon which cartilage could grow.mol

“It takes half a day to design the mould, a day or so to print it, 30 minutes to inject the gel, and we can remove the ear 15 minutes later. We trim the ear and then let it culture for several days in nourishing cell culture media before it is implanted,” Bonassar added.

The incidence of microtia, which is when the external ear is not fully developed, varies from almost 1 to more than 4 per 10,000 births each year.

“Using human cells, specifically those from the same patient, would reduce any possibility of rejection,” Spector said.

He added that the best time to implant a bio-engineered ear on a child would be when they are about five or six years old. At that age, ears are 80 per cent of their adult size. If all future safety and efficacy tests work out, it might be possible to try the first human implant of an artificial ear in as little as three years old, Spector said.

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