'Gel-like' material used to 3D print artificial tissue

3D printing isn't new in medical science as scientists have successfully printed 'hard' replacement parts like bones. The real challenge lies in printing soft, functional organ tissue that could be used for organ transplants.

The main problem in printing soft tissue is that each new 3D printed layer that is added lacks the necessary support needed from all the previous ones to keep the whole thing from falling apart, meaning it can deform under its own weight. "The challenge with soft materials, think about something like Jello that we eat, is that they collapse under their own weight when 3-D printed in air," explained Adam Feinberg, associate professor of Materials Science and Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.

The answer? A technique, known as FRESH (Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels) in which gels are printed inside another gel via syringe.

Researchers are using open-source hardware and software to print complex 3D structures out of soft proteins and "polysaccharide hydrogels" at Carnegie Mellon’s Regenerative Biomaterials & Therapeutics Group.

Hydrogel is a biocompatible "gel-like" material that have been made relatively strong to keep everything together during printing and then removed by simply melting it away thus leaving the final product undamaged. The printer uses a syringe to accurately inject layers of the second gel inside the translucent support gel. 

A research paper was recently published in the journal Science Advances.

Read full article here.

Watch the video on how it works explained by professor Adam Feinberg.