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In a new technological advancement, the cotton candy machine has been used to spin tiny thread networks that could form organs someday, says the Daily Mail.

As it might save lives, it was created by scientist Leon Bellan, using threads of the same size and shape as the patterns formed by human capillaries. These are the tiny, thin-walled vessels that can deliver oxygen and nutrients to cells.

The assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Vanderbilt University, Leon Bellan, used a $40 cotton candy machine from Target. It is a great advancement from current techniques, he claims, as the machine can create 3D artificial capillary systems to sustain living cells for more than a week.

"Some people in the field think this approach is a little crazy," Bellan said. "But now we've shown we can use this simple technique to make microfluidic networks that mimic the three-dimensional capillary system in the human body in a cell-friendly fashion."

"Generally, it's not that difficult to make two-dimensional networks, but adding the third dimension is much harder; with this approach, we can make our system as three-dimensional as we like," he added.

The team hopes to recreate particular organ tissues and finally arrive at templates for numerous organs that can get replicated, according to ScienceAlert.

The research was published in the Feb. 4 issue of the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.