Developments with 3D bioprinting for novel drug discovery

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Although there have been significant contributions from the pharmaceutical industry to clinical practice, several diseases remain unconquered, with the discovery of new drugs remaining a paramount objective. The actual process of drug discovery involves many steps including pre-clinical and clinical testing, which are highly time- and resource-consuming, driving researchers to improve the process efficiency. The shift of modelling technology from two-dimensions (2D) to three-dimensions (3D) is one of such advancements. 3D Models allow for close mimicry of cellular interactions and tissue microenvironments thereby improving the accuracy of results. The advent of bioprinting for fabrication of tissues has shown potential to improve 3D culture models.

Areas covered: The present review provides a comprehensive update on a wide range of bioprinted tissue models and appraise them for their potential use in drug discovery research.

Expert opinion: Efficiency, reproducibility, and standardization are some impediments of the bioprinted models. Vascularization of the constructs has to be addressed in the near future. While much progress has already been made with several seminal works, the next milestone will be the commercialization of these models after due regulatory approval.

KEYWORDS:

• 3D bioprinting
• drug discovery
• tissue models
• drug testing

Article highlights

• Bioprinting offers advantage of higher accuracy, resolution and precision in comparison to the conventional methods for fabricating 3D in vitro models.

• 3D models of various tissues have been bioprinted, and especially, the commercial launch of bioprinted liver and kidney tissues are promising.

• Vascularization of constructs still remains a crucial challenge.

• Standardization of the models with respect to identical markers for specific tissue formation should be demonstrated for future studies.

• Bioprinted models for drug discovery are expected to be soon adopted by the pharmaceutical community with the rapid advancement in bioprinting technologies.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Acknowledgments

The authors also acknowledge support from the Department of Science and Technology, India.

Declaration of interest

P Datta has received an INSPIRE Faculty Award from the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India. 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.

Additional information

Funding

This work has been supported by National Science Foundation Award [#1624515] and the National Institutes of Health Award [#R21 CA22442201A1] awarded to IT Ozbolat.