How Does BioPrinting Work?

By Omair Tariq, Systems and Test Engineer

How bioprinting works:

In order for cells to survive and grow, they need a certain environment. This environment is provided in gel scaffolds, referred to as biopaper in laymen’s term. There are several ways of 3D bioprinting. One of these ways is to print a layer of gel and then a layer of cell in a repetitive manner until the desired structure is obtained. Another method of 3-D bioprinting is to first print a gel scaffold and then facilitate cell growth in the gel scaffold by injecting in cells.

There are various types of gels that can be used as biopaper to meet this purpose: agar, agarose , polyacrylamide gel etc. Due to a lack of availability of funds and equipment, it will be very difficult for us to verify at the cellular level whether the cells have grown correctly or not. Therefore, this semester, we will concentrate on utilizing the 3D bioprinter for the generation of 3D gel scaffolds. 

 

Organovo NovoGen MMX Bioprinter