Tarun Rao

The Intricacies of Bioprinting Vascular Structures

Started May 19, 2021

Abstract or project description

The field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine has seen great advances in the last two decades. The overall implementation of these synthesized structures is still greatly limited, however. One of the major contributors to this stagnation is the lack of functional vasculature within these structures. Given the role that vasculature plays in the distribution of oxygen and nutrients within the body, in vitro organs must also have this network of blood vessels to function properly. Herein, we review state-of-the-art bioprinting techniques and propose the best viable method amongst them for the creation of vascular structures. The three methods we analyzed are extrusion-based, jetting-based, and stereolithography. Information on specific bioinks and the overall process for each method is provided, sourced from primary and secondary scientific literature. While our findings indicated extrusion-based bioprinting is the most popular bioprinting method used for printing vasculature, accounting for a majority of the papers reviewed it was determined stereolithography bioprinting holds the greatest potential in the creation of functional in vitro vasculature. This decision was made given its high resolution, affordable cost, and high cell viability percentage.