Otto I A, Breugem C C, Malda J, Bredenoord A L
Department of Orthopaedics, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Biofabrication. 2016 Oct 7;8(4):042001. doi: 10.1088/1758-5090/8/4/042001.
Biofabrication technologies have the potential to improve healthcare by providing highly advanced and personalized biomedical products for research, treatment and prevention. As the combining of emerging techniques and integrating various biological and synthetic components becomes increasingly complex, it is important that relevant stakeholders anticipate the translation of biofabricated 3D tissue products into patients and society. Ethics is sometimes regarded as a brake on scientific progress, yet from our perspective, ethics in parallel with research anticipates societal impacts of emerging technologies and stimulates responsible innovation. For the ethical assessment, the biofabrication field benefits from similarities to regenerative medicine and an increasing ethical awareness in the development of tissue-engineered products. However, the novelty of the technology itself, the increase in attainable structural complexity, and the potential for automation and personalization are distinguishing facets of biofabrication that call for a specific exploration of the ethics of biofabrication. This review aims to highlight important points of existing ethical discussions, as well as to call attention to emerging issues specific to 3D biofabrication in bench and bedside research and the translation to society.
生物制造技术有潜力通过提供高度先进和个性化的生物医学产品用于研究、治疗和预防来改善医疗保健。随着新兴技术的结合以及各种生物和合成成分的整合变得越来越复杂，相关利益攸关方预测生物制造的3D组织产品向患者和社会的转化非常重要。伦理有时被视为科学进步的阻碍，但从我们的角度来看，与研究并行的伦理预见了新兴技术的社会影响并促进了负责任的创新。对于伦理评估，生物制造领域受益于与再生医学的相似性以及组织工程产品开发中日益增强的伦理意识。然而，该技术本身的新颖性、可实现的结构复杂性的增加以及自动化和个性化的潜力是生物制造的显著特征，需要对生物制造伦理进行具体探讨。本综述旨在突出现有伦理讨论的要点，并提请关注实验室和床边研究中3D生物制造特有的新出现问题以及向社会的转化。
