3D Bioprinting Breakthrough Allows for Complex Vascularization To Be Created

 Tissue Engineering  

Researchers from the University of Sydney, MIT, Harvard, and Stanford have successfully bioprinted blood vessels, offering 3D-printed organs access to nutrients, oxygen, and waste-disposal routes. Overcoming his technical hurdle is a major step forward for regenerative medicine.

3D printing has already been used to create several types of human tissue, such as liver tissue which is currently being used in drug toxicity testing. Yet there is still a major hurdle to get from the tiny sheets of 3D printed organ tissue, to entire, functional 3D printed organs.

That hurdle is the vascularisation of those organs. Every cell within a human organ, such as the liver, kidney or heart are within a hair’s width of a blood supply.  This is an incredibly complex setup, one which up until now, researchers have found to be a nightmare to overcome when dealing with bioprinting. Without an adequate vascular network, the cells would be starved of oxygen, as well as a means to excrete waste, causing them to die and making the printed organs unusable for regenerative medicine.

"While recreating little parts of tissues in the lab is something that we have already been able to do, the possibility of printing three-dimensional tissues with functional blood capillaries in the blink of an eye is a game changer."

Now, scientists from the Universities of Sydney, Harvard, Stanford and MIT have been working together to overcome these mountainous hurdles. Recently the University of Sydney made a groundbreaking announcement. The team of scientists from all four universities have figured out a technique, making such vascularisation possible within the 3D bioprinting process.

The researchers used an extremely advanced bioprinter to fabricate tiny fibers, all interconnected, which would represent the complex vascular structure of an organ. They coated the fibers with human organs-3endothelial cells, and then covered it with a protein based material, rich in cells.

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The cell infused material was then hardened with the application of light. Once hardened the researchers carefully removed the coated fibers, leaving behind an intricate network of tiny spaces throughout the hardened cell material. The human endothelial cells were left behind, along the tiny spaces created by the fibers, which after a week self organized into stable capillaries.

“While recreating little parts of tissues in the lab is something that we have already been able to do, the possibility of printing three-dimensional tissues with functional blood capillaries in the blink of an eye is a game changer,” said study lead author and University of Sydney researcher, Dr Luiz Bertassoni. “Of course, simplified regenerative materials have long been available, but true regeneration of complex and functional organs is what doctors really want and patients really need, and this is the objective of our work.”

The discovery of this technique should accelerate the pace of bioprinting research, and lead to a time, in the not too distant future, when we can meet the demand of the growing need for regenerative medicine. We are still likely several years from such a time, but progress is certainly being made quite rapidly.


SOURCE  3DPrint.com

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