Bio-ink for inkjet printing of living cells

Authors

C J. Ferris, University of WollongongFollow
K J. Gilmore, University of WollongongFollow
S Beirne, University of WollongongFollow
D McCallum, University of WollongongFollow
G G. Wallace, University of WollongongFollow
Marc in het Panhuis, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

81299

Publication Details

Ferris, C. J., Gilmore, K. J., Beirne, S., McCallum, D., Wallace, G. G. & in het Panhuis, M. (2013). Bio-ink for inkjet printing of living cells. Technical Proceedings of the 2013 NSTI Nanotechnology Conference and Expo, NSTI-Nanotech 2013 (vol.2 chapter.4) (pp. 261-264). United States: CRC Press.

Abstract

Direct printing of living cells is an emerging approach to the fabrication of tissue- or organ-like structures for application in regenerative medicine and in vitro drug screening and toxicology. Significant advances in bio-ink design are needed to continue the progression of this technology towards a clinically relevant biofabrication tool. Particularly, bio-inks for inkjet printing must simultaneously satisfy often disparate engineering and biological requirements, such as preventing cell settling and aggregation whilst retaining printability, without cytotoxic effects. The bio-ink described in this work uses a novel microgel suspension and biocompatible surfactants to achieve the above requirements to enable robust cell deposition from multi-nozzle piezoelectric inkjet print heads. We employed this capability to fabricate a range of cell constructs and microarrays. We believe that the bio-ink described in this work is an important advance in inkjet cell printing.