This approach uses tiny capsules containing living cells plus engineered microorganisms that act as biological “instructions”, releasing signals that tell stem cells what kind of tissue to become. The researchers have demonstrated bone, fat and muscle formation, with printing taking minutes to about an hour and tissue maturation taking roughly three weeks.

You often hear people complain about many exciting new sci-tech developments being in labs, and then never heard of again. But there's a whole host of problems to resolve before the lab-to--successful product journey is complete. In this case, the final product needs to be; reproducible, automated, inexpensive, scalable, regulation-compliant and sufficiently precise.

A technology solution that simultaneously solves the problems of cultivated meat & human tissue bio-printing would be so huge, it makes you wonder why people don't put more urgency into these commercialization efforts.

3D printing gets a living upgrade