Biomatrices and biomaterials for future developments of bioprinting and biofabrication

Abstract

The next step beyond conventional scaffold-based tissue engineering is cell-based direct biofabrication techniques. In industrial processes, various three-dimensional (3D) prototype models have been fabricated using several different rapid prototyping methods, such as stereo-lithography, 3D printing and laser sintering, as well as others, in which a variety of chemical materials are utilized. However, with direct cell-based biofabrication, only biocompatible materials can be used, and the manufacturing process must be performed under biocompatible and physiological conditions. We have developed a direct 3D cell printing system using inkjet and gelation techniques with inkjet droplets, and found that it had good potential to construct 3D structures with multiple types of cells. With this system, we have used alginate and fibrin hydrogel materials, each of which has advantages and disadvantages. Herein, we discuss the roles of hydrogel for biofabrication and show that further developments in biofabrication technology with biomatrices will play a major part, as will developments in manufacturing technology. It is important to explore suitable biomatrices as the next key step in biofabrication techniques.

Bone‐Inspired Materials by Design: Toughness Amplification Observed Using 3D Printing and Testing

“…This technique, known as 3D bio-printing, is driving a major challenge in both engineering and medical fields. [34,35] In this work, we use additive manufacturing as a rapid and effective technique to create bone-like polymer composites with improved fracture toughness and strengthtoughness balance with respect to the base constituents. In particular, as nature uses few universal building blocks to achieve unique functional properties through hierarchies, with a similar approach we use pure polymers as building blocks to investigate, through bio-inspired design, the effect of different geometries ( Figure 1) and to get property improvement.…”

3D bioprinting for tissue engineering: Stem cells in hydrogels

“…Current methods predominantly involve printing individual cell types in specific patterns, designed to mimic native tissue cell distribution [87] . Although cells have been printed in single drops, with each drop containing one or two cells [88] , it is currently not possible to print individual cells reliably. This is not an issue as long as large cell agglomerates (clusters of cells large enough to cause cell death at the centre of the cell mass) can be avoided and cell-to-cell contact can be maintained.…”

Feasibility study of a biocompatible pneumatic dispensing system using mouse 3T3-J2 fibroblasts

“…For example, depositing living cells at a specific location is useful to help understand how cell behavior such as proliferation, differentiation, and migration is related to local environment (e.g., extracellular matrix and neighboring cells) [1][2][3][4]. Also, in tissue engineering, which seeks to repair injured or ill organs, it is necessary to seed living cells at a precise position in three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds to achieve successful production of artificial tissues or organs [5][6][7].…”