Things didn't go well the first time Rebecca Torbruegge took a turn at the go-kart track. She ended up with a burn on her leg that refused to heal and eventually—skip the next bit if you're squeamish—"started bubbling." Doctors in Sydney quickly determined she'd need a graft. But instead of following the usual procedure of scraping a patch from the 22-year-old's backside, slapping it over the wound, and hoping for the best, researchers wondered if she'd like to try something new: custom-printed skin, laid down layer by layer by a machine, built from her own cells.

Asked about her decision to become the first human recipient of bedside 3D bioprinting in May, Torbruegge offered this delightfully Australian understatement to a local news station: "I thought about it for a bit, and then thoug

See Full Page