Project description
A 3D bioprinting platform with exchangeable print heads
3D bioprinting is the technology with the highest potential to engineer tissue surrogates. The key 3D bioprinting elements are the printing head and the bioinks, which consist of the live cells and extracellular components. The 3D print head controls the deposition of the bioink, and these elements cannot be dissociated from each other. Therefore, the successful bioprinting of functional tissue surrogates is directly linked to the possibility of a 3D printer that supports the characteristics of each bioink designed explicitly for each compartment of a specific tissue. The EU-funded BioPrint4All project proposes to test and prove the feasibility of an on-demand 3D printing platform that can combine multiple print heads with different features.
Objective
Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting has been projected as one of the technologies with higher prospects to engineer tissue surrogates, which are i) an unquestionable demand for regenerative medicine and ii) an acknowledged upgrade of 2D in vitro cultures as reliable and predictive testing/screening systems for pharma and cosmetic industries. Despite the important milestones achieved so far, bioprinting functional tissues surrogates has proved difficult. The biggest challenge still is the fabrication of complex (different cell types and extracellular components) structures that work, as a whole, as in the native tissue, thus being physiologically relevant.
The key 3D bioprinting elements are the printer – more specifically the printing head – and the bioinks (live cells plus extracellular components). As the print head controls the deposition of the bioink, one cannot be dissociated from the other. Thus, the successful 3D bioprinting of functional tissue surrogates is directly linked to the possibility to have a 3D printer that supports the characteristics of each bioink designed explicitly for each compartment of a specific tissue. Therefore, a new mind-set in which an integrated development of the print heads (guaranteeing processability and cell-friendly conditions) and the bioinks (ideal combination of biomaterial and cell designed explicitly for each compartment of a specific tissue) is required.
This project proposes to prove the feasibility of having an on-demand 3D printing platform that can combine multiple print heads with different features, virtually at any combination. This strategy will foster reaching significant milestones in a shorter time and expectably at lower costs due to more straightforward and highly innovative scientifically-driven approaches.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringmanufacturing engineeringadditive manufacturing
- engineering and technologyindustrial biotechnologybiomaterials
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
ERC-POC - Proof of Concept GrantHost institution
4704 553 Braga
Portugal