3D Bioplotter Research Papers

Infection or damage to the trachea, a thin walled and cartilage reinforced conduit that connects the pharynx and larynx to the lungs, leads to serious respiratory medical conditions which can often prove fatal. Current clinical strategies for complex tracheal reconstruction are of limited availability and efficacy, but tissue engineering and regenerative medicine approaches may provide viable alternatives. In this study, we have developed a new “hybrid graft” approach that utilizes decellularized tracheal tissue along with a resorbable polymer scaffold, and holds promise for potential clinical applications. First, we evaluated the effect of our decellularization process on the compression properties of…

Three-dimensional printing has come into the spotlight in the realm of tissue engineering. We intended to evaluate the plausibility of 3D-printed (3DP) scaffold coated with mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) seeded in fibrin for the repair of partial tracheal defects. MSCs from rabbit bone marrow were expanded and cultured. A half-pipe-shaped 3DP polycaprolactone scaffold was coated with the MSCs seeded in fibrin. The half-pipe tracheal graft was implanted on a 10 × 10-mm artificial tracheal defect in four rabbits. Four and eight weeks after the operation, the reconstructed sites were evaluated bronchoscopically, radiologically, histologically, and functionally. None of the four rabbits showed any…

In this study we tested the possibility of seeding chondrocytes into poly (ethylene glycol)-terephthalate-poly (butylene terephthalate) PEOT/PBT scaffold through an intra-scaffold medium flow and the impact of this continuous medium flow on subsequent chondrocyte-scaffold culture. Eight cubic PEOT/PBT co-polymers (1 cm3) were assigned into two groups. In the semi-dynamic seeding group a continuous medium flow was created inside the scaffolds by a pump system. Around six million chondrocytes were harvested each day, suspended in 1 ml medium and delivered onto the scaffold through the perfusion for a sequential five days. Traditional chondrocytes directly seeding and static culture method was performed…

The advantage of using anatomically shaped scaffolds as compared to modeled designs was investigated and assessed in terms of cartilage formation in an artificial tracheal construct. Scaffolds were rapid prototyped with a technique named three-dimensional fiber deposition (3DF). Anatomical scaffolds were fabricated from a patient-derived computerized tomography dataset, and compared to cylindrical and toroidal tubular scaffolds. Lewis rat tracheal chondrocytes were seeded on 3DF scaffolds and cultured for 21 days. The 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2yl)-2,5-dyphenyltetrazolium bromide (MTT) and sulfated glycosaminoglycan (GAG) assays were performed to measure the relative number of cells and the extracellular matrix (ECM) formed. After 3 weeks of culture, the…