In what sounds like a scene out of a Star Trek movie, medical professionals will soon be working in an interface similar to Inventor, Revit, and Maya to design and produce tissue and organs. According to Organovo CEO Keith Murphy, “This could give us the power to recreate human tissues and organs outside of the body, [and to] build blood vessels, you need fairly intricate designs.” Enter Autodesk.
Autodesk + Organovo
“In a sense, it’s like a little startup inside of a much larger company,”
-Carlos Olguin, Research, Autodesk
Similar to how hospitals require ridiculously intricate infrastructure details such as electrical and plumbing details, the blood vessel component of the software will probably be similar to existing architecture programs. Similar to how information is transferred through optical networks in hospitals, blood vessels are the bio-mechanism for transporting blood and oxygen throughout the body—without them, tissues, cells, and organs would die.
“This would make it less important for a biologist to have a specific software background,” Olguin said. “Right now, they need to write their own programs or partner with a specific engineer. We’re trying to give them tools to iterate faster.”
-Carlos Olguin, Research, Autodesk
At the moment there is no current timeline for when the software will be released, however the two companies are working on a proof of concept that will no doubt help shape the future of medical technology.
Via Techcrunch
Images courtesy LabGrab and Techcrunch