Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Dr. Molina will be speaking about Bioenergetics and Healthy Aging at the next Science Cafe, hosted by the River Ridge Taphouse in Clemmons. This free event is on April 8th and is sponsored by SciWorks and Reynolda Gardens. Click here for more details.

The fountain of youth has been an unattainable part of the human ethos for a long, long time. Who wouldn't want to stay young forever? That may never be a reality, but something like it may.

The work we do at the Sticht center of aging isn't really about extending life-span, but extending something that people have been calling health-span. We're adding life to years instead of adding years to life.

Today we'll  talk about printing body parts.  I'm not talking about antics in the copy room. I mean bio-printing three dimensional human organs for medical research.

There are several types of 3D printers, but  the generic model for this particular type involves a nozzle that squirts out a building material like an ink. Mounted in a frame, it moves side to side as well as up and down. This allows for travel to any point within the printer's range; “printing” material layer by layer. The result is an accurate translation of a digital computer file into a solid three dimensional object.

Wake Forest Innovations, the commercialization arm of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is partnering with a Korean-based Healthcare system to begin product research and clinical testing overseas.