The Next Medical Revolution: Printing Organs in the Lab

"Our vision is to provide an alternative to organ donations and open a window onto a new world of medical treatments," says Aryeh Batt, CEO of Precise Bio, which has developed innovative technology in recent years for printing human tissues and is currently preparing for its first clinical trial of transplanting printed corneal tissue in patients. "Printing human tissues not only addresses the shortage of organs for transplantation but also enables treating incurable diseases using healthy lab-made tissues."

This pioneering company was born out of cutting-edge printing technology that Batt originally developed for industrial purposes. "At a certain point, I realized that the technology I developed had significant advantages in tissue printing, leading to the establishment of Precise Bio in 2015," he says. "I co-founded the company with two of the world's leading experts in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering: Dr. Anthony Atala MD and Professor Shay Soker."

Batt notes that the potential of tissue printing is especially broad. "We begin by focusing on ophthalmology, but our platform can produce tissues for various organs. In the past, we successfully printed liver and heart tissues. In the future, we believe we will be able to print complex organs like kidneys and cardiac parts. Our technology can take us there."

Solving vision impairments
Precise Bio is making progress on three initial products in ophthalmology, which are already on their way to clinical trials. "Our first product is the cornea. The company successfully completed preclinical animal trials, and we expect to begin the first clinical trial in 2025. The corneal tissue is designed to replace donor corneas from deceased people, which currently has a long waiting list. Our second product focuses on another part of the cornea to address keratoconus (a structural distortion of the cornea) and, later, presbyopia (age-related farsightedness). Ultimately, we aim to replace laser surgeries and solve many problems involving vision distortion."

Alongside the corneal tissues, Precise Bio is working on yet another product: retinal tissue. "In many ways, this is our most important and innovative product," Batt explains. "One of the most severe eye diseases is dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), currently an incurable disease that leads to blindness in many people. Existing treatments can only slow down the progression of the disease. We have developed an implantable tissue, which so far has shown excellent results in preclinical research, with a strong potential to treat the disease successfully. Both for the retinal tissue and the two corneal tissues, the preclinical results have been excellent so far."

Advanced biological technologies
"Our product is the tissues themselves, not the printing technologies," Batt emphasizes. "Our goal as a company is to deliver the final tissue to the surgeon so they can implant it in the patient. To achieve this, we use a wide range of advanced technologies. The company was founded based on the development of a unique printing technology that allows us to print each cell individually. This is a major breakthrough in tissue printing. It's important to understand that the different tissues in the human body consist of cells and structural material. Thanks to our ability to print with single-cell resolution, we can accurately replicate the structure of human tissue as in nature."

Beyond this groundbreaking printing technology, Precise Bio has incorporated a range of other technological solutions into its production process. "Printing is just one part of the equation: producing functional tissue requires overcoming many other challenges. For example, we had to devote significant resources to working with the structural material of human tissue. The structural material consists mostly of collagen, which in its natural form is not transparent. Naturally, the cornea needs to be transparent to benefit from its optical properties."

"We've gained a great deal of knowledge in this area," Batt explains. "This is also true regarding the mechanical properties of the tissues: we want to make the surgeons' job easier, allowing them to implant the tissue in the patient simply and easily. We've reached this point by combining various technologies, including advanced biological technologies. We work a lot with stem cells and molecular biology to successfully replicate or freeze cells. The combination of our unique printing method, our expertise in the material that makes up the tissue, and the advanced biological technologies allows us to produce tissues that have no equivalent оn the market today."

Advanced testing system
One of the main technological challenges Precise Bio addressed successfully was the establishment of an advanced testing system. "When surgeons take a cornea from a donor and implant it in a patient, they can reasonably assume that the tissue function in one person and will function in another. But when we produce tissues in the lab, we must prove in advance that our tissue has the adequate properties and is functional."

"We must show that the cells are truly human corneal cells, that they don't change their properties during the production process, that they achieve the desired level of transparency, and that they retain the required mechanical properties," Batt elaborates. "We engaged in a long process with the FDA to certify our tissue according to regulatory requirements. To successfully establish our testing system, we developed a wide range of technologies and engineering solutions."

Behind Precise Bio stands a professional team with varied and diverse expertise. "When you walk through our labs, you meet researchers in biology and physics, software and electronics professionals, and mechanical engineers. Our ability to integrate all these technologies is a significant part of our success: we are by nature a multidisciplinary company. Our employees join us to be part of a global revolution, in one of the leading companies in the world."

On the way to the first clinical trial
Aryeh Batt conducted this interview in the course of an extended period of military reserve service. Batt, a colonel (res.), currently serves as a combat manager for an IDF division. "I've been doing reserve duty for three months now, after completing another four-month round of service at the start of the war," he says. "Our company went through a difficult period during the war: many employees and their spouses were drafted into reserve duty. There's no doubt that the war posed a challenge for us, but we exhibited resilience and managed to make significant progress despite the situation. Today, we are about eight months away from our first clinical trial: a critical milestone."

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In collaboration with Precise Bio