The Role of Information Technology in the Future of 3D Biofabrication

Abstract

Information technology (IT) is ubiquitous in recent human existence. The aim of this article is to present some basic concepts and specific demands that biofabrication may place on IT. Some of these technologies are already available, with a need for improvement, while others will need to be newly developed. Technologies that clearly, precisely and unambiguously specify a tissue or organ are unavailable. A move from expensive in vitro and in vivo assays toward in silico technologies will allow for exhaustive tests and optimization of human substitutes by means of computer biological systems. To complete this substitution, biofabrication lines shall be established; integrating what was planned and designed into physical processes executed by automatic machines. Biofabrication will impose great challenges, since many tools will need to be developed by engineers together with biologists. Many other concerns and challenges will be faced in the path to an autonomous biofabrication line, including cybernetic and biological safety issues. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to shed some light and establish a primary nexus between the present and future applications of IT in biofabrication.

Software for Bioprinting

“…Nevertheless, to avoid errors or to preserve the anatomy of the printed organ as similar to the diseased organ, some small details of the organ such as alveoli in lung or nephrons in the kidney should be reverse engineered. Besides, the creation of a comprehensive functional organ is rather crucial than imitation of organ histology and anatomy[ 79 ]. The complex structure of organs that include nerves and complex vascular systems makes the task of organ model designing more challenging.…”

“…According to Dernowsek et al . [ 79 , 80 ], tissue composition and cell redistribution cannot be absolutely identified yet by clinical bioimaging because the technology has not reached the cellular and histological level. Therefore, one of the best ways to produce organ blueprint using medical data is to combine bioimaging, CAD modeling or reverse engineering, and mathematical modeling and simulation[ 80 , 81 ].…”

“…Although the bioprinting and bioproduct maturation steps are separated steps, it is worth mentioning some of the bioreactors control software. In the future, bioprinting and bioreactor may be able to integrate as one complicated device, but it still remains a task for future development[ 79 ].…”

“…According to Dernowsek et al . [ 79 ], omics technologies in integration with data science, machine learning, and other intelligent tools will contribute to a new field known as “computational biology in the 4.0 industry.” Integration platforms that consist of these fields are known as biofabrication lines. Biofabrication line consists of a set of devices that could produce all necessary types of models: mathematical, physical, and biological, keeping the necessary spatial distribution.…”

BioCAE: A New Strategy of Complex Biological Systems for Biofabrication of Tissues and Organs

“…The emergence of platforms and systems biology to understand biological systems in multiscale levels will enable the prediction and the creation of biofabricated biological structures [6]. This systematic analysis (meta-analysis) or integrated platforms for predicting the biological behavior has been named BioCAE ( Figure 1) and together with BioCAD and BioCAM will become the key procedures for establishing essential steps of the biofabrication processes.…”