Aldeguer, Alchea Nichole A.

Nov 13, 2018

MSE101-B02 Research

Three-Dimensional Printing Of Biological Matters

From the book, “Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices” published by
Elsevier B.V. on April 2016, this article is written by Ahmed Munaz , Raja K.
Vadivelu , James St. John , Matthew Barton , Harshad Kamble, and Nam-Trung
Nguyen and it discusses the challenges and benefits of producing a 3D virtual design
of human organs. This paper also tackles how the conversion of human organs into a
3D virtual design will be made possible.

When Charles Hull first introduced 3D printing in the market on 1984, it opened
new ideas regarding the three dimensional printing of electric components and
biological implants. The printing of biological implants can be made by producing a
bio-ink that will make a layer-by-layer positioning of the biomaterials and living
cells. Since the 3D printer will have a precise spatial control, this can be used to
fabricate three dimensional tissue structures such as skin, muscles and bones. The
process of printing biological matters or “Bio-printing” is divided into 3 stages
which are the pre-processing, processing and post-processing stages. The pre-
processing stage will consist of the formation of the organ blue print and its
conversion into a information that will be understood by the 3D printet. The
processing stage composes of the actual printing of the bioink that comprises of
cells and other biomaterials. The necessary procedures regarding the
transformation of the printed organ into a material that will be suitable for surgical
implantations will be done in the post-processing stages.

There are 3 main challeges in 3D bio-printing. These are namely, (a) the 3D
positioning, (b) the formulation of bioink and (b) the dispensing system. For the 3D
positioning, the problem usually occurs in the layering of the printed material. Since
the printing is done layer-by-layer, the errors in each print accumulates. To minize
this error, an additional program will be used to ensure accuracy of the printing.
Bioink is divided into the bioink for soft materials and the bioink for hard materials.
This is considered as one of the most difficult challenges in the Three-Dimensional
Printing Of Biological Matters because the ink must meet the biological, physical and
mechanical requirements of printing. For the biological aspect, it should be able to
allow cell adhesion and proliferation. The physical ink must be viscous enough to be
able to flow and dispense in the printer. Laslty, the mechanical aspect must give
enough stress and and stiffness to maintain the structure of the cell and other
biomaterials. The bioink for hard materials are mainly for the bones and other
strong connective tissues while the bioink for soft materials are used for collagen
and other tissues. Their differences lie in the way in which they are processed which
is shown in Figure 1.
 FIG 1: Bio-inks for hard and soft material

The last challege lies in the dispensing system of the printer. There 3 different types
of dispensing system namely (a) ink jet, (b) laser jet and (c) extrusion. For the ink
jet, offers low cost and limited contamination of the cells but the heat and
mechanical stress can clog the nozzle and make it harder to use. For the laser jet,
this is used for materials with high viscosity and it provides a higher degree of
precision but this will require a longer amount of time to process. The last
dispensing system is the extrusion technique. This system allows the use of a wide
range of viscosity and has a short printing time but it will require an additional part
a print head which will vary for every type of bioink.

The Three-Dimensional Printing Of Biological Matters benefits everyone. It can

produce over 200 different types of tissues, cells and organs. Since one of the biggest
problem of man is the limited amount of organ donors, the 3D printing of organs can
help in minimizing the deaths and infections caused by the limited amount of
organs. It can also be used as a substitute to broken tissues or cells and it can also
produce new body parts for patients with disability.
Reference:

Ahmed Munaz, Raja K. Vadivelu, James St. John, Matthew Barton, Harshad Kamble,
Nam-Trung Nguyen,

Three-dimensional printing of biological matters,

Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices,

Volume 1, Issue 1,

2016,

Pages 1-17,

ISSN 2468-2179,

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsamd.2016.04.001.