UPDATE: Popular Science made a couple of crucial errors in its original story about Dr. Atala’s bio-printer presentation at TED. Thanks to Karen Richardson, who does publicity for Wake Forest, for sending me the corrections:

“Reports in the media that Dr. Anthony Atala printed a real kidney at the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., are completely inaccurate. At the conference, Dr. Atala used a new type of technology to print a kidney-shaped mold and explained how one day – many years from now – the technology might be used to print actual organs.

At the conference, Atala was reunited with a former patient who received a laboratory-engineered bladder 10 years ago. News reports are incorrectly saying that he received a printed kidney.”

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Bio-printing replacement organs and tissue is coming sooner than later, and that’s a great thing, since kidneys in particular are in great demand and short supply. Yesterday surgeon Anthony Atala of Wake Forest took the TED stage at Long Beach and “printed” a working human kidney. It’s a stunner, but the process has been in the testing phase for a decade. An excerpt from an Independent story:

“College student Luke Massella was among the first people to receive a printed kidney during experimental research a decade ago when he was just 10 years old.

He said he was born with Spina Bifida and his kidneys were not working.

‘Now, I’m in college and basically trying to live life like a normal kid,’ said Massella, who was reunited with Atala at TED.

‘This surgery saved my life and made me who I am today.'”

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No footage yet of Dr. Atala’s demonstration from yesterday, but here he is discussing the topic at TED in 2010.