3D Bioplotter Research Papers

Acetabular cups, which are among the most important implants in total hip arthroplasty, are usually made from titanium alloys with high porosity and adequate mechanical properties. The current three-dimensional (3D) printing approaches to fabricate customized acetabular cups have some inherent disadvantages such as high cost and energy consumption, residual thermal stress, and relatively low efficiency. Thus, in this work, a direct ink writing method was developed to print a cup structure at room temperature, followed by multi-step heat treatment to form microscale porous structure within the acetabular cup. Our method is facilitated by the development of a self-supporting titanium-6 aluminum-4…

Surgery is the most frequent treatment for patients with brain tumors. The construction of full-scale human brain models, which is still challenging to realize via current manufacturing techniques, can effectively train surgeons before brain tumor surgeries. This paper aims to develop a set of three-dimensional (3D) printing approaches to fabricate customized full-scale human brain models for surgery training as well as specialized brain patches for wound healing after surgery. First, a brain patch designed to fit a wound’s shape and size can be easily printed in and collected from a stimuli-responsive yield-stress support bath. Then, an inverse 3D printing strategy,…

Osteoarthritis is a highly prevalent rheumatic musculoskeletal disorder that commonly affects many joints. Repetitive joint overloading perpetuates the damage to the affected cartilage, which undermines the structural integrity of the osteochondral unit. Various tissue engineering strategies have been employed to design multiphasic osteochondral scaffolds that recapitulate layer-specific biomechanical properties, but the inability to fully satisfy mechanical demands within the joint has limited their success. Through computational modeling and extrusion-based bioprinting, we attempted to fabricate a biphasic osteochondral scaffold with improved shear properties and a mechanically strong interface. A 3D stationary solid mechanics model was developed to simulate the effect of…

A major challenge in three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is the limited number of bioinks that fulfill the physicochemical requirements of printing while also providing a desirable environment for encapsulated cells. Here, we address this limitation by temporarily stabilizing bioinks with a complementary thermo-reversible gelatin network. This strategy enables the effective printing of biomaterials that would typically not meet printing requirements, with instrument parameters and structural output largely independent of the base biomaterial. This approach is demonstrated across a library of photocrosslinkable bioinks derived from natural and synthetic polymers, including gelatin, hyaluronic acid, chondroitin sulfate, dextran, alginate, chitosan, heparin, and poly(ethylene glycol).…

Bioengineered adipose tissues have gained increased interest as a promising alternative to autologous tissue flaps and synthetic adipose fillers for soft tissue augmentation and defect reconstruction in clinic. Although many scaffolding materials and biofabrication methods have been investigated for adipose tissue engineering in the last decades, there are still challenges to recapitulate the appropriate adipose tissue microenvironment, maintain volume stability, and induce vascularization to achieve long-term function and integration. In the present research, we fabricated cryogels consisting of methacrylated gelatin, methacrylated hyaluronic acid, and 4arm poly(ethylene glycol) acrylate (PEG-4A) by using cryopolymerization. The cryogels were repeatedly injectable and stretchable, and…

Scale-up of bioengineered grafts toward clinical applications is a challenge in regenerative medicine. Here, we report tissue formation and vascularization of anatomically shaped human tibial condyles ectopically with a dimension of 20 × 15 × 15 mm3. A composite of poly-ɛ-caprolactone and hydroxyapatite was fabricated using layer deposition of three-dimensional interlaid strands with interconnecting microchannels (400 μm) and seeded with human bone marrow stem cells (hMSCs) with or without osteogenic differentiation. An overlaying layer (1 mm deep) of poly(ethylene glycol)-based hydrogel encapsulating hMSCs or hMSC-derived chondrocytes was molded into anatomic shape and anchored into microchannels by gel infusion. After 6 weeks of subcutaneous implantation in athymic rats,…

Purpose Hydrogels with low viscosities tend to be difficult to use in constructing tissue engineering (TE) scaffolds used to replace or restore damaged tissue, due to the length of time it takes for final gelation to take place resulting in the scaffolds collapsing due to their mechanical instability. However, recent advances in rapid prototyping have allowed for a new technology called bioplotting to be developed, which aims to circumvent these inherent problems. This paper aims to present details of the process. Design/methodology/approach The paper demonstrates how by using the bioplotting technique complex 3D geometrical scaffolds with accurate feature sizes and…

The construction of biomaterial scaffolds for cell seeding is now seen as the most common approach for producing artificial tissue as compared with cell self-assembly and Acellular matrix techniques. This paper describes the use of synthetic and natural polymeric material shaped into 3D biological matrices by using Rapid Prototyping (RP) technology. Recent advances in RP technology have greatly enhanced the range of biomaterials that can now be constructed into scaffolds, also allowing for maximized control of the pore size and architecture. Bioplotting is one such method which allows the dispensing of various biomaterials into a media bath which has similar…