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Bio-printing is advancing so rapidly that scientists believe it might soon be possible to 'print' living cells to create replacement limbs or organs.

Current methods use a solution of cells dubbed "bioink" in standard inkjet printing heads to make layers of cells on the microscale, though this has a limited degree of precision.

Suwan Jayasinghe at University College London is developing an alternative approach called Pressure Assisted Spinning, according to a report in New Scientist.

Three needles nested inside one another separately deliver cells, a viscous polymer and pressurised air. The pressurised air draws out and mixes the cells and polymer mix.

Because the polymer is viscous, it flows out in a continuous stream of sticky thread with living cells spaced along the 50 nanometre-wide thread's length. The thread is shaped by pressure not mechanical force, making it gentle on the cells, Jayasinghe claimed.

Scanning the needle across a surface can build up a flat sheet of the material, while doing that over a 3D shape can produce a scaffold of cells ready to grow into any shape, which in theory could be bone or tissue.