3D bioprinting: current status and trends—a guide to the literature and industrial practice

Abstract

The multidisciplinary research field of bioprinting combines additive manufacturing, biology and material sciences to create bioconstructs with three-dimensional architectures mimicking natural living tissues. The high interest in the possibility of reproducing biological tissues and organs is further boosted by the ever-increasing need for personalized medicine, thus allowing bioprinting to establish itself in the field of biomedical research, and attracting extensive research efforts from companies, universities, and research institutes alike. In this context, this paper proposes a scientometric analysis and critical review of the current literature and the industrial landscape of bioprinting to provide a clear overview of its fast-changing and complex position. The scientific literature and patenting results for 2000–2020 are reviewed and critically analyzed by retrieving 9314 scientific papers and 309 international patents in order to draw a picture of the scientific and industrial landscape in terms of top research countries, institutions, journals, authors and topics, and identifying the technology hubs worldwide. This review paper thus offers a guide to researchers interested in this field or to those who simply want to understand the emerging trends in additive manufacturing and 3D bioprinting. Graphic abstract

Scalable Biofabrication: A Perspective on the Current State and Future Potentials of Process Automation in 3D-Bioprinting Applications

“…Individual publications show groundbreaking results on how the use of automation solutions can help to monitor and adjust crucial process parameters and to draw conclusions about cell biological characteristics or allow the printing of complex 3D structures with hydrogels ( Hinton et al, 2015 ; Shi et al, 2018 ; Armstrong et al, 2019 ; Jin et al, 2021 ; Poologasundarampillai et al, 2021 ; Yang et al, 2021 ). At the same time, the number of patents and companies embracing 3D-Bioprinting continue to grow ( Santoni et al, 2021 ). However, no technology has yet achieved the major breakthrough to commercial marketing and industrial production for a broad mass ( Ng et al, 2019 ).…”

“…Since its beginnings, the technology has already evolved greatly, advancing from a niche technology further and further into a wide variety of sectors to fulfill prerequisites for commercial applications ( Combellack et al, 2018 ). During this development, automation is also becoming increasingly important in the context of process-driven research of 3D-Bioprinting in order to meet standardized, scalable and economic constraints ( Santoni et al, 2021 ). Modern 3D-Bioprinting itself requires a certain level of automation to be functional, which leads to the current state of the art.…”

“…The goal of the latest research and development by universities, bioprinting companies, and companies in the life science and food industries are all-in-one platforms. These are designed to enable the use of multiple materials, tools for further processing and process monitoring, and the use of AI ( Santoni et al, 2021 ). The described advances are mostly in the early stages and not ready yet for commercialization on a large and economic scale.…”

Vascularizing the brain in vitro

“…However, the construction of 3D hollowed network structures of in vitro BBB models has not been achieved. A similar limitation representing a significant challenge in the biofabrication of normal vasculature has been addressed using sophisticated 3D printing and bioprinting methods, including inkjet, laser-assisted, micro-extrusion, and vat-polymerization bioprinting ( Aazmi et al., 2021 ; Santoni et al., 2021 ; Wang et al., 2021 ; Zhu et al., 2021b ).…”

Biotechnological and Technical Challenges Related to Cultured Meat Production

“…According to Vijayavenkataraman et al, no one method could be excursively used to achieve the goal of biofabrication of complex tissue, the current trend being research in the development of hybrid methods [94]. Extrusion bioprinting: The most common 3DBP method is the extrusion-based one, mainly because it is versatile and affordable, and several entry-level bioprinters are available on the market [95]. Kang et al, for example, successfully used it to bioprint meatlike constructs [96].…”