World-first 3D printer adds new dimension to cancer research at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Melbourne cancer researchers say a world-first 3D printer, which prints mini tissues that mimic the human body, will accelerate their ­efforts to find treatments.

Melbourne cancer researchers say a world-first 3D printer, which prints mini tissues that mimic the human body, will accelerate their ­efforts to find treatments.

The 3D bio-printer — the size of home coffee machine — will be able to print 1000 cell models in less than a working day, compared to current manual methods of growing the cells that would take more than a working week.

As well as testing the success of new drugs, the printer at Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre paves the way for researchers to take cells from individuals and test treatment combinations in the cell model before they reach the patient.

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Colon, ovarian, prostate and breast cancers are among the first cancers to be studied using the printer.

The machine from Sydney start-up Inventia Life Sciences will also allow immunotherapy treatments to be tested in the cell models — by printing both immune and cancer cells into the same ink well to test how they interact — which cannot be done with current manual cell culture methods.

Head of the Victorian Centre for Functional Genomics, based at Peter Mac, Associate Professor Kaylene Simpson, said colon, ovarian, prostate and breast cancers were among the first cancers to be studied using the printer.