Is Bioprinting in Bioprocessing’s Future?

When most individuals consider bioprocessing, they consider the manufacturing of a biologically based mostly drug. Ask an AI-based assistant to outline bioprocessing, and it returns one thing like this: “Bioprocessing is a method that utilizes living cells or their components, like enzymes, to create desired products.” Even in healthcare, that’s a fairly broad definition, one which goes far past medicine. Consequently, many extra strategies of bioprocessing would possibly lie forward. One of them may very well be using bioprinting, which many contemplate a subset of biomanufacturing, and will be a part of bioprocessing, relying on the context.

Instead of treating tomorrow’s extreme coronary heart ailments with a drug, for instance, bioprinting would possibly simply make a brand new coronary heart for a affected person. As a begin for that type of future for bioprocessing, Yong He, PhD, professor of mechanical engineering at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and his colleagues not too long ago described protocols that create organ-like tissues with bioprinting.

As these scientists famous: “Projection-based three-dimensional bioprinting offers an approach for manufacturing biomimetic tissues with complex spatial structures and bioactivity, presenting potential for creating implantable organs or organoids to test drug response.”

The key problem that this strategy addressed is the lengthy printing time required for organ-sized buildings with out damaging the well being of cells. Plus, present bioinks typically fail to offer the high-quality element required for organ-scale printing.

Yong and his colleagues developed a course of that makes use of particular components, together with the Ficoll 400 density gradient to make the bioink extra uniform and pH calibration to maintain cells alive throughout printing. With solely fundamental lab and biotech data, customers can produce complicated, extremely detailed tissues that stay viable for at the least every week.

In checks, the tactic efficiently printed a dense, cube-shaped tissue—10 mm per facet, 10 million cells per µL—with over 82% cell survival after seven days. Preparing the bioink and printing took about 5 hours, adopted by every week of tradition for the tissue to develop.

Moreover, the tactic will be tailored for customized 3D fashions, totally different cell combos, and numerous purposes akin to illness modeling, regenerative drugs, and drug testing. For instance, Yong’s staff reported: “Based on the biocompatibility of [this] bioink system and its role in tissue regeneration, we anticipate that our methodology can be applied to various targets, such as bone, cartilage, nerve, liver, skin, trachea, blood vessels, and muscle.”

Bioprinting is unlikely to switch biopharmaceutical manufacture anytime quickly. In the long run, although, treating a failing organ by biopharmaceuticals would possibly give approach to a transplant with a bioprinted substitute.