3D Bioprinting of Hydrogel Microparticles Through Conversion of Dual-Extrusion Bioprinters
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Date
2022-04-26
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Abstract
Over the past decade, additive manufacturing has resulted in significant advances towards fabricating anatomic-size, patient-specific scaffolds for tissue models and regenerative medicine. This can be attributed to the development of advanced bioinks capable of precise deposition of cells and biomaterials. The combination of additive manufacturing with advanced bioinks is enabling researchers to fabricate intricate tissue scaffolds that recreate the complex spatial distributions of cells and bioactive cues found in the human body. However, the expansion of this promising technique has been hampered by the high cost of commercially available bioprinters and proprietary software. In contrast, conventional 3D printing has become increasingly popular with home hobbyists and caused an explosion of both low-cost thermoplastic 3D printers and open-source software to control the printer. In this thesis, we bring these benefits into the field of bioprinting by converting widely available and cost-effective 3D printers into fully functional, open source, and customizable multi-head bioprinters. We demonstrate the practicality of this approach by designing bioprinters customized with multiple extruders, automatic bed leveling, and temperature controls for approximately $400. Type-1 diabetes is a chronic condition in which the pancreas produces little or no insulin, caused by the destruction of the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas. Traditional strategies for treating type-1 diabetes, involving beta-cell transplantation or delivery, have shown mixed results due to loss of cell viability and decreased efficacy. Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting of microgel bioinks has shown potential to circumvent some of these challenges and meet the needs for tissue engineering and cell delivery. The converted bioprinters in this thesis make 3D bioprinting a scalable solution to treating chronic diseases like T1D.
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3D Bioprinting, Tissue Engineering, Biomaterials, Biomedical Engineering