A review of biomaterials scaffold fabrication in additive manufacturing for tissue engineering

Abstract

The current developments in three-dimensional printing also referred as “additive manufacturing” have transformed the scenarios for modern manufacturing and engineering design processes which show greatest advantages for the fabrication of complex structures such as scaffold for tissue engineering. This review aims to introduce additive manufacturing techniques in tissue engineering, types of biomaterials used in scaffold fabrication, as well as in vitro and in vivo evaluations. Biomaterials and fabrication methods could critically affect the outcomes of scaffold mechanical properties, design architectures, and cell proliferations. In addition, an ideal scaffold aids the efficiency of cell proliferation and allows the movements of cell nutrient inside the human body with their specific material properties. This article provides comprehensive review that covers broad range of all the biomaterial types using various additive manufacturing technologies. The data were extracted from 2008 to 2018 mostly from Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and Scopus using keywords such as “Additive Manufacturing,” “3D Printing,” “Tissue Engineering,” “Biomaterial” and “Scaffold.” A 10 years research in this area was found to be mostly focused toward obtaining an ideal scaffold by investigating the fabrication strategies, biomaterials compatibility, scaffold design effectiveness through computer-aided design modeling, and optimum printing machine parameters identification. As a conclusion, this ideal scaffold fabrication can be obtained with the combination of different materials that could enhance the material properties which performed well in optimum additive manufacturing condition. Yet, there are still many challenges from the printing methods, bioprinting and cell culturing that needs to be discovered and investigated in the future.

Biomaterials for In Situ Tissue Regeneration: A Review

“…Scaffold biocompatibility and biomimicry is essential for performing and maintaining essential cellular activities which include molecular level and mechanical signaling networks [11]. The incorporation of bioactive features such as biochemical stimuli, mechanical forces, and physiochemical material properties into the chosen biomaterial plays an important role in influencing cell behavior by creating an environment that stimulates a cellular response similar to that of the host tissue [32,33,34].…”

“…Biomaterials utilized for in situ tissue regeneration can be designed to be adaptable so as to better serve the necessities of the damaged native tissue such as scaffolds, hydrogels, membranes, tubes, micro and nano spheres [55,56,57,58,59], and use manufacturing methods, such as additive manufacturing, that are cost-effective [10,11]. From a surgical perspective, it is desirable for the biomaterial to be easily manipulated into different forms and sizes to allow in situ tissue regeneration tailored to the individual patient and their injuries as in the case of bone defect treatments [35,60].…”

“…The main advantage of a top-down approach is the prospect of using a variety of biomaterials and the ability to produce porous scaffolds of specific mechanical properties [8]. The use of additive manufacturing [9,10,11] has proved to be particularly effective in producing scaffolds with the required properties in a shape personalized to the patient and the injury site. However, this approach suffers some limitations such as positioning cells of multiple types with precision, achieving geometries and cell densities which are tissue specific.…”

Advances in Tissue Engineering and Innovative Fabrication Techniques for 3-D-Structures: Translational Applications in Neurodegenerative Diseases

“…The main advantages of top-down strategies are the possibility to use a wide range of processing materials and the production of porous scaffolds with specific mechanical properties according to the applications of interest. On the other hand, the lack of proper vascularization of the construct, the challenges in a homogeneous distribution of multiple cell types, and the subsequent impossibility to achieve tissue specific cell densities represent some serious limitations [ 3 , 6 , 9 , 10 ]. In bottom-up approaches, scaffolding materials, cells, and sometimes also bioactive factors are assembled together, forming building units of several shapes and sizes [ 11 ].…”

Mechanobiological Approach to Design and Optimize Bone Tissue Scaffolds 3D Printed with Fused Deposition Modeling: A Feasibility Study

“…The fabrication of scaffolds with additive manufacturing techniques is an issue that recently received recognition and attention from the research community [11,12]. Different rapid prototyping techniques were proposed to fabricate biomaterials scaffolds, based on liquid polymerization [13], material deposition processes [14], powder-based processes [15], sheet lamination [16], binder jetting [17], and material jetting [18].…”