AVS 64th International Symposium & Exhibition
    Biomaterial Interfaces Division Tuesday Sessions
       Session BI+AS+MI+SA-TuA

Invited Paper BI+AS+MI+SA-TuA7
3D Ink-jet Printing for Tissue Engineering

Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 4:20 pm, Room 12

Session: Bio from 2D to 3D: Challenges in Fabrication and Characterization & Flash Presentations
Presenter: Thomas Boland, The University of Texas at El Paso
Correspondent: Click to Email
An inkjet application is described, where biologically active ink, which may include drugs and living cells as well as non-active can be deposited alongside scaffolding materials to build two- and three-dimensional constructs for medical treatment. The technology faces several limitations that present interesting engineering opportunities. The nature and scope of the problems will be discussed in the context of the fabrication of microvasculature. The current tissue engineering paradigm is that successfully engineered thick tissues must include vasculature. As biological approaches alone such as growth factors have fallen short of their promises, one may look for an engineering approach to build microvasculature. Layer-by-layer approaches for customized fabrication of cell/scaffold constructs have shown some potential in building complex 3D structures and with the advent of cell printing, one may be able to build precise human microvasculature. Several research projects will be presented. The fabrication of microvsculatures for skin and adipose tissue engineering and current studies to characterize the biology and functionality of these engineered structures will be presented. These data suggests that a combined simultaneous cell and scaffold printing can promote microvasculature formation and improve current tissue engineering technology.