For over 30 years, researchers have sought to produce an ear in a laboratory from a patient’s living cellular material. In 2016, ETH Professor Marcy Zenobi-Wong and her team made waves with an ear created in a 3D printer.

Now, however, researchers from ETH Zurich, the Friedrich Miescher Institute in Basel and the Cantonal Hospital of Lucerne have taken another important step forward. Using human ear cartilage cells, the team has produced elastic cartilage in the laboratory, achieving mechanical properties similar to that of natural tissue.