The Adoption of Three-Dimensional Additive Manufacturing from Biomedical Material Design to 3D Organ Printing

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting promises to change future lifestyle and the way we think about aging, the field of medicine, and the way clinicians treat ailing patients. In this brief review, we attempt to give a glimpse into how recent developments in 3D bioprinting are going to impact vast research ranging from complex and functional organ transplant to future toxicology studies and printed organ-like 3D spheroids. The techniques were successfully applied to reconstructed complex 3D functional tissue for implantation, application-based high-throughput (HTP) platforms for absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (ADME) profiling to understand the cellular basis of toxicity. We also provide an overview of merits/demerits of various bioprinting techniques and the physicochemical basis of bioink for tissue engineering. We briefly discuss the importance of universal bioink technology, and of time as the fourth dimension. Some examples of bioprinted tissue are shown, followed by a brief discussion on future biomedical applications.

Keywords

• bottom-up engineering
• 3D bioprinting
• additive manufacturing
• nanotoxicology
• tissue engineering