PhD. Tolou Shokouhfar, Associate professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering at the Technical University of Michigan, Reza Shahbazian Yassar, Associate Professor Department of Mechanical Engineering and Shayan Shafiee Nezhad, PhD student of this university hope to help rebuild the damaged nerves in patients with spinal cord injuries using this biological printer.

This printer looks like a toaster that the front part and its sides has been removed. The metal frame of it is around a circular stainless steel illuminated with ultraviolet light. The hydraulic stainless steel and thin black tubes are placed in the rear edge that at the end of it an interior furnished box made of red plastic is placed. In front of the printer metal with a red bio-robot logo is carved. In total, the gray metal frame is small enough to fit on a school desk.

The main key of this work is producing a printable ink of bio-correct or printable tissue.

Shokuhfar is the president of Nano medicine and Nano electronics laboratory at the Technical University of Michigan's department and also is the Assistant Professor of Bioengineering Department at the University Of Illinois School Of Dentistry.

She has collaborated with Shahbazian Yassar in the field of biological printing research that his background interdisciplinary experience in Nano-Crystalline Cellulose such as Biomaterials, has inspired her new researches about three-dimensional printing in Shokouhfar laboratory.

“Nano-crystalline cellulose with very good mechanical properties is appropriate for biological printing of frameworks that can be used for living tissues” says Shahbazian Yassar.

Explaining that Nerve recovery in biomedical engineering is a very difficult puzzle, Shokouhfar says: “We wanted to have this big problem targeted. We are born with all nerves which are with us to the end of life and the damaged nerves will never be repaired.”

Other institutions are also trying to solve the problem. Many of them have large devices in the size of a room which have an internal coating cell culture incubators and refrigerators. The accuracy of this equipment allows them to print the complete organ. But smaller-scale innovations require greater agility.

“We can pursue recovery researches with a simpler printer. Adaptation of artificial tissue with nerve cells starts up long before the printer” Says Shayan Shafiee Nezhad.

According to Shafiee, the first step in this way is making a biocompatible polymer that can be printed. This means that Shafiee and Shokouhfar should produce materials for printing and cannot provide the raw material from a specific store.

Nerves don not just need a biocompatible tissue cells to act as a carrier for cells. Nerve function is all about electrical pulses. That's where Shokouhfar researches come from.

Last year she received the CAREER grant from the National Science Foundation of America to use Graphene in biomaterials research.

The researchers now are developing the application of this material to print nerve cells.