Bioprinting: A Step Into the Future

A look at cutting edge medicine and engineering

3D printing is being utilized to make product prototypes, educate STEM students, and create complex works of art-its applications are endless. In the late 2000s, scientists began testing the merits of bioprinting, which uses 3D printing technology and materials that incorporate living cells to fabricate tissue. Bioprinting, says Amanda Haage, requires printing biomaterial, a non-living scaffold or temporary structure, and bioink, which supplies a slurry of living cells. Bioinks can be made of everything from natural materials including gelatin, collagen, and hyaluronic acid to man-made polymers like polyethylene glycol. Though the progress of research is incremental, studies across the world have successfully printed skin, cartilage, bones, blood vessels, and organ tissue. 

There are three main methods of bioprinting: droplet-based, laser-assisted, and extrusion-based. Droplet-based bioprinting can use inkjet or electrohydrodynamic (EHD) printing, which have different advantages. Inkjet printing, says Weng et. al, is precise enough to print skin grafts in animal models and recreate organs, while EHD is capable of printing with higher viscosity inks. Laser-assisted printing has such high resolution that it can copy the tiniest of cell patterns, allowing Michael and colleagues to engineer a skin substitute for mice. Extrusion-based printing is considered to be very diverse, as it has a faster printing speed and the ability to support more bioink types including hydrogel, a material that can hopefully replicate human tissue in the future. 

While many trials focus on the development of organ tissue, a 2017 French study from Scientific Reports used laser-assisted bioprinting technology to repair a skull bone defect in mice. Keriquel and partners printed the bone graft ex vivo, or outside the body, and later implanted the calvarial bone. These scientists differentiated their methods from similar studies by hypothesizing that stem cells placed in a disk arrangement proliferate at a higher speed than other shapes. In 2021, researchers in Seoul used extrusion-based bioprinting to stack liver cells layer-by-layer, providing a unique new way to study the effects of drugs on the liver. In 2022, according to Joseph Guzman, the first 3D ear implant was successfully transplanted into a human patient by 3DBio Therapeutics, a regenerative medicine company. The 20-year-old recipient, who has a rare birth defect called microtia (deformed ear), had a functional ear made from her own cells. This advancement speaks to the import of bioprinting not only for those born with a defect, but also those who suffer physical trauma. 

The implications of bioprinting are vast. Studies like Dr. Parth Chansoria’s show promise regarding internal wound healing, as her patch-based therapy prevented pulmonary air leakage in rats. This could help to treat patients with a pneumothorax, which can cause holes in the lung. Patch-based treatments such as this have the potential to be used externally. Burn victims could even receive grafts made from their own cells. According to The American Society for Cell Biology, companies are already using organs-on-a-chip to reduce the need for animal testing. Live organ transplants may someday be unnecessary. Experts like Tal Dvir, director of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine at Tel Aviv University, state that the ability to fully 3-D print an organ may be two to three decades away, but other advancements are nearer than ever. Encouragingly, the current achievements in medicine mean that bioprinted skin is close to being a reality. 

                                                               Works Cited

Barber, Carolyn. “3D-Printed Organs May Soon Be a Reality. ‘Looking Ahead, We’ll Not Need Donor Hearts.’” Fortune Well, Fortune, 15 Feb. 2023, fortune.com/well/2023/02/15/3d-printed-organs-may-soon-be-a-reality/#. 

“Bioprinting: Ethical and Societal Implications.” ASCB, 5 Apr. 2023, www.ascb.org/science-news/bioprinting-ethical-and-societal-implications/. 

Guzman, Joseph. “Biotech Company Says Woman Received 3D Printed Ear Made from Her Own Cells.” The Hill, The Hill, 4 Sept. 2022, thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/medical-advances/3509610-biotech-company-says-woman-received-3d-printed-ear-made-from-her-own-cells/. 

Haage, Amanda. “What’s It All about? 3D Bioprinting.” ASCB, 6 May 2022, www.ascb.org/science-news/whats-3d-bioprinting/. 

“How Bioprinting Transforms Lung Therapeutics & Tissue Regeneration.” CELLINK, 11 Oct. 2023, www.cellink.com/blog/how-bioprinting-transforms-lung-therapeutics-tissue-regeneration/. 

Michael, Stefanie, et al. “Tissue Engineered Skin Substitutes Created by Laser-Assisted Bioprinting Form Skin-Like Structures in the Dorsal Skin Fold Chamber in Mice.” PloS One, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 4 Mar. 2013, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3587634/. 

Oliveira, H, et al. “In Situ Printing of Mesenchymal Stromal Cells, by Laser ... - Nature.” Scientific Reports , 11 May 2017, www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-01914-x.pdf. 

Weng, Tingting, et al. “3D Bioprinting for Skin Tissue Engineering: Current Status and Perspectives.” Journal of Tissue Engineering, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 13 July 2021, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283073/#bibr47-20417314211028574.