Printing Organs On-Demand: Bioprinting Breakthrough

The Brighter Side of Science has reported a breakthrough in biomaterials research and development.

The University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science has made a significant breakthrough in bioprinting technology. Assistant Professor Liheng Cai led a team that developed biomaterials with mechanical properties that resemble human tissue.

Image of an artificial heart with mechanical properties.Photo byCreative Commons

Digital assembly of spherical particles (DASP) is the innovate new bioprinting technology. DASP involves depositing biomaterial in water, supporting the framework to build 3D structures; the environment is suitable for cell growth. Here, "voxels" are created. Voxels are similar to pixels and construct objects layer by layer

Ph.D. student Jinchang Zhu worked on the project,

“With precise control over mechanical properties, this voxel may serve as one of the basic building blocks for our future printing constructs. For example, with this level of control, we could print organoids, which are 3D cell-based models that function as human tissue, to study disease progression in the search for cures.”

The biomaterials are polymer hydrogels designed to mimic human tissue by rearranging itself and creating chemical bonds of single-molecule monomers, which collectively form networks that act like human cells.

Source:

The Brighter Side