Bioengineers have recently created, an exquisitely entangled vascular network that is patterned according to the body's natural passageways for blood, air, lymph, and other vital fluids through 3D printing,
The team that developed the design was led by bioengineers Jordan Miller of Rice University and Kelly Stevens of the University of Washington (UW). The project was also done in collaboration with 15 other authors from Rice, UW, Duke University, Rowan University and Nervous System (a design firm in Somerville, Massachusetts).
Given that the goal of bioprinting is to eventually be able to provide healthy and functional organs for organ transplantation; both form and function have to go hand in hand.
"One of the biggest roadblocks to generating functional tissue replacements has been our inability to print the complex vasculature that can supply nutrients to densely populated tissues," said Miller, assistant professor of bioengineering at Rice's Brown School of Engineering. "Further, our organs actually contain independent vascular networks -- like the airways and blood vessels of the lung or the bile ducts and blood vessels in the liver. These interpenetrating networks are physically and biochemically entangled, and the architecture itself is intimately related to tissue function."
The team was able to surpass the challenge by creating a new open-source bioprinting technology which they called "stereolithography apparatus for tissue engineering," or SLATE, which uses additive manufacturing to make soft hydrogels one layer at a time.
Miller stated that SLATE is the very first bioprinting technology that addresses the challenge of multi vascularization in a direct and comprehensive manner. Several tests of the printed structure showed that it can withstand "breathing", which involves in particular bloodflow and gas exchange.
Such promising results then begs the question of functionality. Will they also functionally behave more like healthy tissues? This and several other questions are yet to be answered and at this time the design files are made available to others for further research.
In a statement made by Miller he said, "We are only at the beginning of our exploration of the architectures found in the human body. We still have so much more to learn."
