By stringing together thousands of these so-called droplets (which measure about 50 microns across) using a custom-built 3D printer, the Oxford team believes it has engineered a "new type of material" that could eventually be used to ferry drugs throughout our internal systems to a specific target site, fill-in for damaged tissues or even mimic neural pathways via specially printed protein pores.

ENGADGET: Oxford University researchers create new 3D printed 'soft material' that could replace human tissue