Overview offers an inkling on 3D bioprinting

The market for bioprinting is growing rapidly. Inkjet printing is one of the most common 3D printing technologies, featuring advantages such as high resolution, throughput, speed, and reproducibility at a low cost. This technique can also help fabricate a wide variety of biomaterials, including artificial tissues that mimic the characteristics of living tissues, with potential applications in disease modeling, drug discovery, drug screening, cosmetics testing, and tissue replacement.

By considering each of the steps involved in inkjet printing, Machekposhti et al. discussed recent advancements and future research directions, which include possible pathways to further improve the technique. They summarized the factors that affect the inkjet printing process, including ink properties, physical parameters, and actuation mechanisms.

“The review is useful since it considers how these parameters have been optimized by the inkjet printing community to facilitate the printing of biomaterials,” said author Roger Narayan.

A better understanding of inkjet printing and the variables that influence it might improve its ability to print artificial tissues, expanding the applications of inkjet printing in medicine and beyond.

“Others can use the information in the review to facilitate additional improvements to inkjet printing technology, including the printing of cells and other fragile biological materials,” Narayan said.

The resolution and uniformity of structures printed via inkjet printing need further development before the technique is practical for some of these proposed applications. Narayan also noted that the bioprinting community still must validate inkjet printing technologies for manufacturing medical devices to meet the requirements of national regulatory agencies.

Source: “Physicochemical parameters that underlie inkjet printing for medical applications,” by Sina Azizi Machekposhti, Saeid Movahed, and Roger J. Narayan, Biophysics Reviews (2020). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0011924 .