Abstract

Strategies for Bioprinting of Macroscopic Tissue Constructs

Michael Gelinsky, Professor and Head, Technische Universität Dresden

Bioprinting has developed very fast in the last couple of years and several additive manufacturing technologies as well as biomaterials, suitable for fabrication of cell containing constructs are available today. But one major problem still limits manufacturing of mechanically stable and macroscopic tissue equivalents: bioprinting with live cells requires soft and low concentrated hydrogels (‘bioinks’) whereas for construction purposes stiff, high concentrated and/or highly crosslinked materials are needed. Several and very different strategies have been proposed to overcome this problem, e. g. combining highly viscous cell-free materials like PCL as mechanically stable framework with less viscous, cell-laden hydrogels; increasing the viscosity of bioinks by blending with other (bio)polymers or short fibers – or stabilizing the constructs during fabrication with inert supportive materials. The lecture will give an overview about some of the current developments and novel strategies for bioprinting of macroscopic tissue constructs.