Culturing primary hepatocytes within a three-dimensional (3D) structure that mimics the natural liver environment is a promising strategy for extending the function and viability of hepatocytes in vitro. In the present study we generate porous PLGA nanofibers, that are chemically modified with extracellular matrix proteins, to serve as 3D scaffolds for the in vitro culture of primary human hepatocytes. Our findings demonstrate that the use of ECM proteins, especially type I collagen, in a porous 3D environment helps to improve the synthetic function of primary hepatocytes over time. We believe the work presented within will provide insights to readers for drug toxicity and tissue engineering applications.

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Physiological signals contain a wealth of personal health information which needs continuous monitoring for early detection of disease‐induced physiological irregularities and can be established as a potential approach to developing personalized healthcare devices. However, it is restricted by the lack of cost‐effective, precise, sensitive, and biocompatible flexible wearable sensors that are rapidly, reliably, and cost‐effectively are integratable. Here the work is reported on the development of novel, multimaterial, and multilayer all‐3D‐printed nanocomposite‐based (M2A3DNC) microengineered, flexible, hybrid, and soft wearable pressure sensors to record sensitive and multiple physiological signals for real‐time human health monitoring. By applying the intrinsic property of extrusion 3D printing, the conductive layers as well as the hemicylinder microstructure dielectric layer are directly 3D printed by optimizing the moving path of a nozzle, with air voids formation after assembling to enhance the compressibility of the active layer in our sensors. The microengineered sensors exhibit a very low detection limit, rapid response time, a repeatable and reproducible mechanical property with matching modulus with human skin (0.57–3.7 MPa) while offering intimate contact to the skin, excellent biocompatibility, and high mechanical compressibility in the active layer which leads to significantly high sensitivity. Thus, the proposed 3D printed cost‐effective M2A3DNC sensors pave a novel path to develop a highly compressible microstructured device with high sensitivity and low detection limit in a time‐effective manner with demonstrated application in real‐time health monitoring and envision further applicability in robotics tactile sensing interfaces.

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The pH sensing devices can provide important health information with applications in infection detection, disease diagnosis, and personalized medicine. However, these devices are often expensive with modest flexibility and require bulky readout instruments, thus inappropriate for wearable, remote, and continuous health monitoring applications. Herein, an integrated, miniaturized, modular, wearable, battery‐free, biocompatible, flexible, 3D‐printed (WB2F3D) sensor system for on‐demand, continuous, wireless, and real‐time pH monitoring is proposed, developed, and fully characterized. The 3D‐printing of nanomaterials on skin‐like flexible substrates is innovatively applied to enable multimaterial and multilayer printing of the sensors, reusable electronic/communication circuity, and antennas in a tailorable, low‐cost, and time‐efficient manner. The battery‐free and flexible readout system is designed to enable wireless and on‐demand energy and data transmission for continuous and real‐time pH monitoring. This sensor system exhibits high sensitivity (≈|51.76| mV pH−1), specificity, repeatability, reproducibility toward various pH ranges (3.0–10.0), excellent mechanical flexibility, and outstanding biocompatibility (cell viability > = 90%). It successfully demonstrates the pH change monitoring in an ex situ hydrogel‐based wound model. The WB2F3D sensor system is envisioned to provide an integrated platform for accurate, on‐demand, battery‐free, wireless, and real‐time human health monitoring, and another step toward personalized medicine.

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