{"id":5763,"date":"2020-06-25T08:49:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T07:49:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=5763"},"modified":"2024-06-26T16:59:50","modified_gmt":"2024-06-26T15:59:50","slug":"why-innovation-in-biomaterials-is-key-to-the-success-of-bioprinting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/why-innovation-in-biomaterials-is-key-to-the-success-of-bioprinting\/5763\/","title":{"rendered":"Why innovation in biomaterials is key to the success of bioprinting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Markus Rimann, head of Tissue Engineering for Drug Development (TEDD) at the University of Zurich, speaks to The Innovation Platform about the symbiotic nature of innovation in biomaterials and bioprinting.<\/h2>\n

The artificial production of tissues has been a dream for many scientists and clinicians for decades. In the early phases of tissue engineering, acellular scaffolds were implanted into the defective tissue site of patients to be repopulated by body cells to regenerate the defect. Thus, the name \u2018tissue engineering<\/a>\u2019 mainly referred to applications in regenerative medicine. Although the expectations in tissue engineering were rather high, the progress in this field was quite slow. It was only with the advent of three-dimensional (3D) cell culture technologies<\/a> that the field of tissue engineering received new impetus.<\/p>\n

In the first decade of the 21st century, it became evident that cells grown in 3D better represent human physiology than cells grown in standard monolayer 2D cultures. With this further development of 3D cell cultures, the application range also broadened from regenerative medicine to drug development, substance testing and personalised medicine. In scaffold-based 3D cell cultures, biomaterials (scaffolds) are used to provide a 3D environment for the cells. Biomaterials developed for 3D cell culture are subdivided into synthetic or natural biomaterials<\/a> based on their origin. Commonly used natural polymers include collagen I, Matrigel, fibrin, alginate, cellulose, hyaluronic acid, gelatine or mixtures thereof, whereas synthetic polymers are based on poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), polyurethane and poly(vinyl alcohol).<\/p>\n

For printing purposes, the rheological properties need to be considered and adapted accordingly. Currently, many of these biopolymers are modified to make them suitable for bioprinting. Bioprinting is mainly based on three technologies:<\/p>\n