3D bioprinting for organ and organoid models and disease modeling

ABSTRACT

Introduction

3D printing, a versatile additive manufacturing technique, has diverse applications ranging from transportation, rapid prototyping, clean energy, and medical devices.

Areas covered

The authors focus on how 3D printing technology can enhance the drug discovery process through automating tissue production that enables high-throughput screening of potential drug candidates. They also discuss how the 3D bioprinting process works and what considerations to address when using this technology to generate cell laden constructs for drug screening as well as the outputs from such assays necessary for determining the efficacy of potential drug candidates. They focus on how bioprinting how has been used to generate cardiac, neural, and testis tissue models, focusing on bio-printed 3D organoids.

Expert opinion

The next generation of 3D bioprinted organ model holds great promises for the field of medicine. In terms of drug discovery, the incorporation of smart cell culture systems and biosensors into 3D bioprinted models could provide highly detailed and functional organ models for drug screening. By addressing current challenges of vascularization, electrophysiological control, and scalability, researchers can obtain more reliable and accurate data for drug development, reducing the risk of drug failures during clinical trials.

KEYWORDS:

• Organoids
• bioprinting
• bioinks
• stem cells
• cardiac
• neural

Article highlights

• 3D bioprinting can control the physical and biochemical properties of the niche-microenvironment when generating cell-laden constructs. This fine-tuning enables researchers to study drug response in mature cells and biobank expandable cells.

• These tissue models replicate their properties of their in vivo counterparts and can serve as a useful tool for drug screening as their use for applications in neural, cardiac, and testis models as reviewed.

• Cell viability and function depend on oxygen penetration – making vasculature an important consideration when generating 3D bioprinted constructs. Researchers have generated perfusable microvascular networks using sacrificial materials and microfluidics or directly printed vascular channels using bioprinting techniques.

• Stretchable and viscoelastic biomaterials can modulate physiological processes such as stem cell fate, morphogenesis, proliferation, and genetic expression, with significant implications for neural and cardiac tissue models.

• Smart cell systems can enrich different cell types within organoids without external cues, as well as generate programmable gene perturbations, morphogen gradients, and chemical pulses. These systems can improve 3D organ models, especially for cardiac and neural tissue models.

Declaration of interest

R Flannigan is the CEO of Teumo Health Technologies Inc. VA Da Silva also declares support from Mitacs. S Willerth is also the CEO and co-founder of Axolotl Biosciences, a company that sells novel bioinks for 3D printing. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The authors are funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canada Research Chair program, Mend The Gap – New Frontiers Transformational Research Fund, the Brazilian Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) under grant 88887.694651/2022-00, the Brazilian National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), the Stem Cell Network Canada, the Cardiology Academic Practice Plan, the University of British Columbia, and the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research.