Thousands of people die each year waiting for an organ transplant. To combat this shortage, bioprinted organs have been created through developments in 3-D printing technology. The National Organ Transplant Act (“NOTA”) established the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (“OPTN”) in 1984 to address the organ shortage and improve organ matching. NOTA outlaws the purchase and sale of organs, which on its face seems to solve the issue of inequitable distribution of organs, but also has the effect of hampering development and research into organ bioprinting with the long-term impact of keeping bioprinted organs out of reach for the majority of the population.
This Note argues that until bioprinting technology has advanced enough to where the bioprinted organs have a predictable success rate and an established production assembly, the sale of such bioprinted organs should be allowed to garner funding for further development. After such organs become more reliable, defining a separate class for bioprinted organs will allow the guidelines of the OPTN to be used to derive a system of determining priority for organ recipients, and procurement of a custom bioprinted organ should be incorporated into plans for improving the OPTN’s operations.
* J.D. Candidate, 2024, University of Illinois College of Law; M.E., B.S., 2021, Illinois Institute of Technology. Thank you to the University of Illinois Law Review for the time, effort, and diligence spent on this Note. Special thanks to Professor Jacob S. Sherkow for advising me throughout the writing process. This Note is dedicated to my family, Devang, Nidhi, and Nikhita Kasana, for their continued support during my academic pursuits and their love for me through everything else.
The full text of this Note is available to download as a PDF.