3D Bioplotter Research Papers

Osteochondral tissue damage is a serious concern, with even minor cartilage damage dramatically increasing an individual’s risk of osteoarthritis. Therefore, there is a need for an early intervention for osteochondral tissue regeneration. 3D printing is an exciting method for developing novel scaffolds, especially for creating biological scaffolds for osteochondral tissue engineering. However, many 3D printing techniques rely on creating a lattice structure, which often demonstrates poor cell bridging between filaments due to its large pore size, reducing regenerative speed and capacity. To tackle this issue, a novel biphasic scaffold was developed by a combination of 3D printed poly(ethylene glycol)-terephthalate-poly(butylene-terephthalate) (PEGT/PBT)…

3D bioprinting stands out as one of the most promising innovations in the field of high technologies for personalized biomedicine, enabling the fabrication of biomaterial-based scaffolds designed to repair, restore, or regenerate tissues and organs in the body. Among the various materials used as inks, hydrogels play a critical role due to their unique characteristics, including excellent biocompatibility, adjustable mechanical properties, and high solvent retention. This versatility makes them ideal for various applications such as biomedical devices, drug delivery, or flexible electronics. Although chitosan is a promising material for such applications, when used alone, it does not possess the necessary…

Despite the potential of extrusion-based printing of thermoplastic polymers in bone tissue engineering, the inherent nonporous stiff nature of the printed filaments may elicit immune responses that influence bone regeneration. In this study, bone scaffolds made of polycaprolactone (PCL) filaments with different internal microporosity and stiffness was 3D-printed. It was achieved by combining three fabrication techniques, salt leaching and 3D printing at either low or high temperatures (LT/HT) with or without nonsolvent induced phase separation (NIPS). Printing PCL at HT resulted in stiff scaffolds (modulus of elasticity (E): 403 ± 19 MPa and strain: 6.6 ± 0.1%), while NIPS-based printing…

Rising global demand for animal-products exceeds human-population growth. This unsustainable trend causes harmful ecological effects. Overfishing causes extinction of aquatic animals and a dangerous biodiversity loss harming aquatic ecosystems. Hence, replacing animal-based food, particularly beef and fish, with sustainable alternatives is an urgent vital global mission. Analogs of animal-based products include plant-based, tissue-culture-based and fermentation-based products. Fish analogs have mainly been based on plant-protein, fungi, tissue-culture, but to our knowledge, fish analogs made of algae, particularly macroalgae, as the major component and protein-source have not been reported. 3D-food-printing is a fast-developing technology, enabling formation of complex three-dimensional structures with various…

Repairing multiphasic defects is cumbersome. This study presents new soft and hard scaffold designs aimed at facilitating the regeneration of multiphasic defects by enhancing angiogenesis and improving cell attachment. Here, the nonimmunogenic, nontoxic, and cost-effective human serum albumin (HSA) fibril (HSA-F) was used to fabricate thermostable (up to 90 °C) and hard printable polymers. Additionally, using a 10.0 mg/mL HSA-F, an innovative hydrogel was synthesized in a mixture with 2.0% chitosan-conjugated arginine, which can gel in a cell-friendly and pH physiological environment (pH 7.4). The presence of HSA-F in both hard and soft scaffolds led to an increase in significant…

Biofabrication, which integrates biological sciences with advanced manufacturing, is vital for innovations in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. One primary consideration in this domain is ensuring consistent, scalable, and adaptable processes that are amenable to clinical translation. Toward this, this paper introduces a new framework for digital twin integration in biofabrication. Digital twins, which are real-time virtual replicas of physical systems, can facilitate comprehensive monitoring, accurate prediction, and effective optimization to enable robust biofabrication processes and systems. The proposed framework incorporates major building blocks for implementing digital twins for biofabrication, including comprehensive data acquisition and analysis using sophisticated sensors to…

Introduction: For the treatment of sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL), dexamethasone (DEX) delivery via silicone implants, customized to individual patient anatomy through 3D printing, may be used. To ensure safety, the sterility of these implants must be verified. Autoclaving was employed as a potential sterilization method, and the biocompatibility and bio-efficacy of 3D-printed, DEX-loaded implants, using three different medical-grade silicones, were assessed post-autoclaving.   Methods: UV-Silicone 60A MG (Momentive, Niskayuna, USA), Nusil Med-4960 (Avantor, Radnor, USA), and Amsil Silbione 24503-50 A (Elkem, Oslo, Norway) loaded with 0, 1, 10, or 20 (w/w) % DEX (caelo, Hilden, Germany) were 3D printed…

Current techniques for assessment of critical quality attributes (CQA) of engineered tissues primarily utilize histological and biochemical assays, which are predominantly offline, destructive, and time- and resource-intensive. To accelerate the translation of tissue engineering technologies from laboratories to scaled up/out manufacturing, advances in biofabrication processes need to be supplemented with appropriate nondestructive, inline quality assessment techniques. Accordingly, this dissertation focuses on dielectric spectroscopy (DS), which utilizes the responses of living cells to alternating electric fields to interpret their CQA in real time. Whereas majority of DS literature and current applications pertain to cells in suspension, this work investigates DS of…

The aim of this paper was the creation of porous 3D substrates and scaffolds of polycaprolactone (PCL) and the analysis of the effect of an ozone treatment on their performance, in collaboration with the Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials (IPCB) of the National Research Council (CNR). The nanoindentation tests showed that the substrates treated with ozone exhibit lower hardness values than the untreated ones, suggesting that the treatment carried out makes these substrates “softer”. From the small punch tests carried out, very similar load-displacement curves were obtained for treated and untreated PCL substrates, characterized by an initial linear section,…

It is well known that large bone defects present significant challenge in orthopedic surgery, especially critical-sized defects, which can cause a trauma to the patient. The current treatment for this problem is underwhelming and often agitated with complications. Additive manufacturing of 3D bioprinting offers a solution by allowing the replacement of osteogenic cells and artificial components of bone, where additive biomaterials and bioactive signaling can mimic native tissue. This study aims to verify the parameter that affect the fabrication process of 3D bioprinting by extrusion with composite Hydroxyapatite with gelatin and gelatin methacryloyl (GelMa) scaffold. Furthermore, it will evaluate the…