Bioprinting Technologies in Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Bioprinting technology is a strong tool in producing living functional tissues and organs from cells, biomaterial-based bioinks, and growth factors in computer-controlled platform. The aim of this chapter is to present recent progresses in bioprinting of nerve, skin, cardiac, bone, cartilage, skeletal muscle, and other soft tissues and highlight the challenges in these applications. Various composite bioinks with bioactive ceramic-based scaffolds having patient-specific design and controlled micro-architectures were used at clinical and preclinical applications successfully for regeneration of bone. In nerve tissue engineering, bioprinting of alginate- and gelatin-based gel bioinks by extrusion presented a controllable 3D microstructures and showed satisfactory cytocompatibility and axonal regeneration. Bioprinting of cardiac progenitors in biopolymers resulted in limited success, while the use of bioinks from extracellular matrix induced satisfactory results in cardiac regeneration. Osteochondral scaffold bioprinting is challenging due to the complex hierarchical structure and limited chondral regeneration. Therefore, current approaches focused on osteochondral scaffold with vascular network and mimicking hierarchical structures. The applications of bioprinting in other types of tissues were also studied, and results showed significant potentials in regeneration of tissues such as cornea, liver, and urinary bladder.

Keywords: Bioprinting; Bone; Cardiac; Cartilage; Nerve; Skin; Tissue engineering.