Speaker
Description
One of the most innovative areas of 3D printing development is bioprinting, the creation of biological structures using living cells and bioinks. This technology enables the production of tissue scaffolds that can serve as templates for regenerative cells. These applications include printing skin and cartilage, as well as preliminary attempts at printing organs such as kidneys, liver, and pancreas. 3D bioprinting of organs and tissues offers a potential solution to the shortage of organs for transplantation and enables the creation of models for pharmacological research, contributing to the goal of minimizing animal testing.
In our work, we focused on increasing the mechanical strength of tubular constructs printed from alginate-gelatin hydrogel for use on the urethra. Considering that this print is to be a fragment of soft tissue with high elasticity and required variable strength (due to the variable pressure of flowing urine), it was decided to undertake research on obtaining increased mechanical strength in a natural way - through cellular hypertrophy.
In order to obtain tubular cross-sections of prints reflecting the shape of the urethra without the need for additional processing (in a single process), while maintaining the best possible viability of cells introduced into the extruded bioink, a special 3D bioprinter with a rotary work table was designed and built.
Conclusions
A specially designed 3D bioprinter, using a rotary table, allows for printing tubular structures from hydrogels in a single process and without supports, while maintaining high accuracy of the obtained path thickness and very high cell survival. The analysis carried out showed that with the increasing culture time of the structures and the degree of their overgrowth by the biological material contained inside, the tensile strength of the prints increases, reaching its maximum after 6 weeks of culture. During long-term culture, the biological material contained inside the bioprints is characterized by excellent survival of fibroblast cells, which create a homogeneous, strongly developed network reflecting the tissue structure. An important aspect of designing analogous hydrogel bioprints is maintaining a balance between the kinetics of degradation of the polymer matrix based on sodium alginate and gelatin in in vitro culture conditions with the corresponding rate of cell growth and proliferation. This correlation eliminates the risk of losing the stability of the structures and creates a prospective possibility of mapping the native tissue of the urethra.
This research was funded by the National Centre for Research and Development, grant number: TECHMATSTRATEG2/407770/2/NCBR/2020.
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