The arrival of commercial bioprinters - Towards 3D bioprinting revolution!

Abstract

The dawn of commercial bioprinting is rapidly advancing the tissue engineering field. In the past few years, new bioprinting approaches as well as novel bioinks formulations have emerged, enabling biological research groups to demonstrate the use of such technology to fabricate functional and relevant tissue models. In recent years, several companies have launched bioprinters pushing for early adoption and democratisation of bioprinting. This article reviews the progress in commercial bioprinting since the inception, with a particular focus on the comparison of different available printing technologies and important features of the individual technologies as well as various existing applications. Various challenges and potential design considerations for next generations of bioprinters are also discussed.

Keywords: 3D printing; Bioprinter; biofabrication; bioinks; bioprinting; rapid prototyping; tissue engineering.

Figure 1

Distribution of 3D bioprinting patents (Adapted from[13]): (A) The top 10 assignee institutions as per the total number of patent families from 1^st Jan 2000 till 1^st July 2016. Three institutions are tied for the tenth position; (B) The top 10 most countries in which priority filing was done for the first patent of a patent family. Four countries are tied for the tenth position.

Figure 2

Schematics of various types of bioprinting technologies: (A) Extrusion bioprinting; (B) Inkjet bioprinting; (C) Laser-assisted bioprinting and; (D) SLA bioprinting

Figure 3

Growth in commercial bioprinting companies over the years

Figure 4

Portable Bioprinters: (A) Allevi 2 (courtesy of Allevi, Philadelphia, US) (B) Scientist™ (courtesy of Seraph Robotics, US) (C) CPD1 (courtesy of SunP Biotech International, NJ, US) (D) INKREDIBLE + (courtesy of CELLINK, Sweden) (E) REGEMAT 3D V1 (courtesy of Regemat 3D, Spain) (F) 3Dynamic Alpha (courtesy of 3Dyanmic Systems, UK) (G) Vitarix (courtesy of Pensees, Republic of Korea) (H) r3bel (courtesy of Se3D, Santa Clara, US) (I) SYN^{^} (courtesy of Bio3D, Singapore) (J) BIOBOT™ (courtesy of Advanced Solutions Life Sciences, Kentucky, US) (K) Aether 1 (courtesy of Aether, San Francisco, US).

Figure 5

Medium-sized Bioprinters: (A) 3DDiscovery™ (courtesy of RegenHU, Fribourg, Switzerland); (B) NovoGen MMX Bioprinter™ (courtesy of Organovo, San Diego, United States); (C) FABION (courtesy of 3D Bioprinting Solutions, Russia); (D) 3D-Bioplotter® (courtesy of Envision TEC, Gladbeck, Germany); (E) BioScaffolder (courtesy of GeSim, Radeberg, Germany); (F) RX1™ BIOPRINTER (courtesy of Aspect Biosystems, Vancouver, Canada); (G) BIO X (courtesy of CELLINK, Sweden); (H) INVIVO (courtesy of Rokit, Seoul, Korea); (I) Allevi 6 (courtesy of Allevi, Philadelphia, US).

Figure 6

Large Bioprinters: (A) BIOASSEMBLYBOT® courtesy of Advanced Solutions Life Sciences, Kentucky, US); (B) REGENOVA (courtesy of Cyfuse Biomedical K.K., Tokyo, Japan); (C) NGB 17.03 (courtesy of Poietis, France); (D) 3Dn 300 TE Series (courtesy of nScrypt, Orlando, US) (E) Bio-Architect® (courtesy of Regenovo Biotechnology Co.Ltd., Hnagzhou, China); (F) BioFactory™ (courtesy of RegenHU, Fribourg, Switzerland); (G) ALPHA-CPT1 (courtesy of SunP Biotech International, NJ, US).

Figure 7

A brief history of bioprinting: Seminal events in bioprinting so far

Figure 8

Bioprinting companies around the world

Figure 9

Various print heads in current commercial bioprinters