There are more than 100 types of liver disease, according to the American Liver Foundation. And per the Gift of Life Donor Program, patients who need a liver transplant face a national average wait time of about 11 months. Now, however, new hope is emerging from the scientific community at Carnegie Mellon University.
In early January 2026, researchers at CMU received an award of up to $28.5 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to develop a functional, 3D-bioprinted liver transplant for patients with acute liver failure. That investment already appears to be paying off, as researchers are closer than ever to developing living liver tissue made from human biological material.
So far, the Liver Immunocompetent Volumetric Engineering (LIVE) initiative aims to create living liver tissue in the form of a patch that can take over core liver functions, giving a diseased or injured liver time to regenerate. Depending on the patient's condition, this bioprinted patch could help the liver repair itself or buy crucial time for those awaiting a transplant. Even a successful liver patch alone could ease the ever-growing demand for donor organs. If progress continues, researchers believe a fully 3D-bioprinted liver made from human cells could one day be possible, dramatically reducing the global need for liver transplant donors.
"This innovation would fundamentally change health care as we know it," said Adam Feinberg, principal investigator on the project at CMU's College of Engineering. "The liver we are creating would last for about two to four weeks. It would give patients time for their own liver to regenerate, and then they would not need a liver transplant, freeing up those livers for other patients."
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The living liver tissue relies on CMU's Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels (FRESH) platform. Using FRESH, researchers can print collagen, living cells, and other biological materials into 3D scaffolds that resemble complex human tissue structures. So far, researchers have successfully created vascularized pancreatic tissue to help address Type 1 diabetes, but printing an entire liver presents a far greater challenge.
The goal is to use hypoimmune cells in the liver tissue's composition, making it a universal donor and eliminating the need for immunosuppressant drugs. One of the main reasons liver transplants take so long is the challenge of matching patients with donors their bodies won't reject. Creating universal living liver tissue could provide immediate relief for patients waiting for a transplant.
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While the immediate testing of this technology is on the liver, the hope is to apply it to virtually every organ.
"The technologies and capabilities we develop will also have an impact beyond the liver, enabling additional efforts to build human tissue and organs to treat congenital heart defects, heart disease, blindness, and Type 1 diabetes," Feinberg added.
Should progress continue, this 3D-bioprinting technology could extend, improve, and save lives for a great number of people.
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