Bio-Additive-Manufacturing

Tissues and organs in the human body are highly heterogeneous. As such, any biomedical device or structure we engineer needs to match that level of complex heterogeneity. Additive manufacturing provides the unique capability of fabricating structures with desired levels of heterogeneity through multi-material, functionally graded implementations. In MPML, our goal is to effectively use direct-ink-writing to fabricate bio-constructs with heterogeneity that mimics or conform to the human tissues. These constructs will make a significant impact in technologies including tissue engineering, epidermal drug delivery etc. As an example, in an NSF-funded project we fabricate scaffolds to be used for growing artificial articular cartilage. Our hypothesis here is that direct-written scaffolds that mimic the multi-layer structure of the native cartilage in regards to cell type and morphology as well as mechanical property gradients will substantially increase the success of the artificial cartilage tissue grown using these scaffolds. For more information, check out the project summary on the NSF website:

 

https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1606226&HistoricalAwards=false