Thermal inkjet printing in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Abstract

With the advantages of high throughput, digital control, and highly accurate placement of cells and biomaterial scaffold to the desired 2D and 3D locations, bioprinting has great potential to develop promising approaches in translational medicine and organ replacement. The most recent advances in organ and tissue bioprinting based on the thermal inkjet printing technology are described in this review. Bioprinting has no or little side effect to the printed mammalian cells and it can conveniently combine with gene transfection or drug delivery to the ejected living systems during the precise placement for tissue construction. With layer-by-layer assembly, 3D tissues with complex structures can be printed using scanned CT or MRI images. Vascular or nerve systems can be enabled simultaneously during the organ construction with digital control. Therefore, bioprinting is the only solution to solve this critical issue in thick and complex tissues fabrication with vascular system. Collectively, bioprinting based on thermal inkjet has great potential and broad applications in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. This review article introduces some important patents related to bioprinting of living systems and the applications of bioprinting in tissue engineering field.

Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors certify that there is no conflict of interest related to the work presented in this article.

Figures

Figure 1

Schematic of bioprinting cartilage with simultaneous photopolymerization process (adapted from [41]).

Figure 2

Schematic drawing of postulated mechanism for simultaneous deposition of HMVEC and fibrin channel scaffold using modified thermal inkjet printer. When bioink is printed into fibrinogen substrate to form fibrin channel, the cells in the bioink are deposited into the scaffold at the same time as the fibrin channel fabrication. The printed cells are aligned inside the fibrin channels and ready for proliferation (adapted from [58]).