Developing the method of fabricating lifelike artificial organs was a process of trial and error and began more than two years ago when Ghazi, a urological surgeon and educator, was introduced to Stone who has a background in engineering, a passion for developing new medical devices, and, most importantly, access to a 3D printer.
The process begins with images obtained from MRI, CT, or ultrasound scans into computer-assisted designs (CAD). Instead of using these designs to create rigid plastic replicas of human anatomy, which was already being done in many other places, the pair instead converted the CADs of organs into molds, or negatives, which were built using a 3D printer. In a process akin to casting a bronze statue, the molds are then injected with a hydrogel which, after freezing, assumes a solid state.
