3D bioprinting of human pluripotent stem cells for tissue engineering

In recent years, the use of a simple inkjet technology for cell printing has triggered tremendous interest in the field of 3d biofab-rication or organ printing. A key challenge has been the development of printing processes which are both controllable and less harmful, in order to preserve cell and tissue viability and functions. In this talk, we will present the development of a valve-based stem cell printer that has been validated to print highly viable and functional human embryonic stem cells (h-ESCs) and induced pluripotent stem cells (h- iPSCs). 3D bioprinting based on both scaffold based (using different printable hydrogel materials) and scaffold-free (using hanging droplet technique) approaches will be discussed. This work demonstrates that the valve-based printing process is gentle enough to maintain stem cell viability, accurate enough to produce spheroids of uniform size and cell-containing hydrogel structures, and that printed cells maintain their pluripotency. In addition, our recent work on printing human stem cell derived liver tissues for animal-free drug testing applications will be presented.