First Kidney and Liver Tissue 3D Bioprinted Aboard the ISS

3D Bioprinting in Space Just Printed Human Tissue for the First Time

A California company called Auxilium Biotechnologies has produced kidney and liver tissue aboard the International Space Station. This is the first time either tissue type has been manufactured in orbit, and the company did it with its AMP-1 orbital bioprinter.

The experiments ran in June inside the station's Kibo laboratory module. The bioprinter used cell and tissue designs from the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine in North Carolina. In addition to kidney, liver, and cartilage tissues, the AMP-1 machine created 28 nerve repair implants. All of it returned to Earth on a SpaceX Dragon cargo capsule that splashed down in the Pacific on June 17.

Anthony Atala, director of Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, said the uniform cell distribution achieved in space points to real possibilities for manufacturing medical devices and tissues off-world. Isac Lazarovits, Auxilium's engineering vice president, called the mission an important milestone toward routine manufacturing operations in orbit.

This is not the first bioprinting experiment on the ISS. Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko tested a magnetic bioprinter in 2018 that assembled cartilage cells. But Auxilium's AMP-1 is the first tool to produce multiple tissue types in space, and the first to make kidney and liver tissue there. The company sees this flexibility as key as commercial interests push to expand manufacturing hubs in space for biotech and healthcare.