UTA Engineer Working to Develop Bioinks for Use in 3-D Printing of Tissues, Organs

By UT Arlington University Communications

Posted on September 09, 2016, September 09, 2016

The advent of 3-D printing has led to many innovations in manufacturing, assembly and production.

Nearly anything ' from machine parts to food can be printed on demand. Researchers now are exploring the technology to print human tissues and organs. However, the lack of good inks for 3-D bioprinting remains a barrier.

Kyungsuk Yum, an assistant professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department of UTA 's College of Engineering, has earned a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop nanocomposite hydrogel bioinks that could be used for that purpose.

Inks for bioprinting must be 3-D printable and biocompatible. They must form to their intended shape and be used safely with living cells. Current bioinks are mostly made from a polymer solution that encapsulates cells, a material commonly used in tissue engineering. However, because these bioinks are in a liquid state, it is difficult to print 3-D tissue structures that are self-supporting and high resolution because the bioinks spread and their mechanical properties are weak.

'Ideally, bioinks should be liquid-like during the printing process, but solid-like after. We are developing a nanocomposite bioink that incorporates carbon nanotubes, ' Yum said. 'Our bioink will change its mechanical properties and become liquid-like when pressure is applied for printing, but revert to a solid-like material when that pressure is released after printing. '

'Organs are very complex structures. If we 're successful, we 'll be able to print more complex, 3D tissue structures with higher resolution that are more similar to those within our body. From there, we can work to develop a new technology that will eventually lead to printing physiologically relevant 3-D tissues and ultimately working organs. '

Click here to read more about Yum 's research.