The ability to 3D print muscles, bones and even ORGANS and implant them into patients has been proved feasible by scientists.
Just like in the 2004 cult sci-fi classic, I, Robot, doctors of the future may be able to build brand new parts of the body from scratch and replace wounded limbs and organs.
Regenerative medicine students at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre in North Caolina, USA, have used sophisticated, custom-made 3D printers to create body parts, which, when implanted into animals, matured into functional tissues - and even developed a system of blood vessels.
The director of WFBMC, and the study's senior author, Anthony Atala, said: "This novel tissue and organ printer is an important advance in our quest to make replacement tissue for patients.
"It can fabricate stable, human-scale tissue of any shape. With further development, this technology could potentially be used to print living tissue and organ structures for surgical implantation."
The research, published in Nature Biotechnology, was backed with funds from the US Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine and aims to provide bioprinted tissue for future patients.
Tissue engineering was once thought to be impossible, but thanks to the precision of today's 3D printers, it is now attainable and sits on the horizon of medical science.
The Integrated Tissue and Organ Printing System (ITOP), was developed over a 10-year period.
It deposits both bio-degradable, plastic-like materials to form the tissue 'shape' and water-based gels that contain the cells.
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The process, which is thought not to cause any harm to the living cells, initially stuggled to ensure the engineered structures 'lived' long enough to integrate into the body.
But researchers optimised a water-based 'ink' used to hold the cells - and printed a lattice of micro-channels throughout the structures, allowing nutrients and oxygen to diffuse and keep them alive.
Dr Atala said: "Our results indicate that the bio-ink combination we used, combined with the micro-channels, provides the right environment to keep the cells alive and to support cell and tissue growth."
The ITOP system was also able to use data from CT and MRI scans, allowing the researchers to 'tailor' tissue for patients.
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In order to demonstrate that ITOP could generate complex 3D structures, scientists implanted human-sized ears beneath the skin of mice.
Two months later, the ear shape was well-maintained and cartilage tissue and blood vessels had formed.