[Our lab uses] a desktop inkjet printer, but instead of using ink, we're using cells.

Anthony Atala, a physician-scientist known for regenerative medicine and bioprinting, has used this line in public explanations of his lab’s work to make “3D bioprinting” intuitive to non-specialists. The remark typically appears in talks and interviews describing how modified inkjet-style printers can deposit living cells (often in a supportive “bioink” or scaffold) layer by layer to build tissue-like structures. The phrasing functions as an accessible analogy rather than a technical description, aimed at conveying the conceptual leap from printing pigment on paper to precisely placing viable cells to form biological constructs.

Atala’s remark uses a familiar household technology—the inkjet printer—to make the idea of bioprinting intuitively graspable. By swapping “ink” for living cells, he highlights a shift from printing information to printing biological structure: cells can be deposited in precise patterns to form tissues, potentially enabling patient-specific grafts or organ components. The quote also underscores the engineering mindset behind regenerative medicine: complex biological problems are approached through controllable, repeatable fabrication processes. Implicitly, it points to both promise and limitation—printing cells is a starting point, but functional tissue requires maturation, vascularization, and integration with the body.