INKJET PRINTING: AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY FOR 3D TISSUE OR ORGAN PRINTING

Abstract

The typical scaffold-based tissue engineering approach, though promising and still considered as a paradigm in tissue engineering, faces some challenges: immunogenicity, degradation rate of the biomaterials, toxicity of degradation products, inflammatory responses of host tissues, mechanical mismatch with surrounding tissues, cell cultures with multiple cell types & specific localization, suitable fabrication method of scaffold, and proper vascularization are some key issues which may affect the long term behaviour of the tissue engineering construct and its primary biological functions. To overcome these drawbacks & for successful reconstruction of defective tissues, new manufacturing methodologies under the principle of rapid prototyping have emerged that enabled the fabrication of structures more close in architecture to biological tissues. A more exciting approach is bioprinting also referred to as organ printing which could be defined as the use of rapid prototyping strategy for patterning and assembling biologically relevant materials like biomolecules, cells, tissues, biodegradable biomaterials in order to produce functional living tissues or organs. In this strategy functional 3D tissue is printed layer-by-layer that could be later implanted in vivo where in situ printing has also been proposed and demonstrated in some areas like skin and cartilage. This article presents a general approach of inkjet printing technology with a specific focus on its successes, limitations, & prospects for the future as a bioprinting technology in 3D tissue or organ printing.