Microfluidic Devices and 3D Printing for Synthesis and Screening of Drugs and Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Microfluidics and 3D printing will allow a faster research and development in pharmaceutical and medical areas, supporting new solutions for active pharmaceutical production and clinical tests without the necessity of in vivo animal models. The present review aims to show the role of these two technologies in the resolution of current pharmaceutical issues (e.g., efficient continuous production of active pharmaceutical ingredients, high costs for medicine development and lack of preclinical systems capable to predict accurate human responses to new medicine drugs) and in the development of biomedical and tissue engineering. The present paper was divided into the following sections: microfluidics and active pharmaceutical ingredients synthesis, organs-on-a-chip and multiorgans microdevices, 3D printing/bioprinting, and hydrogels and bioinks. Finally, conclusions and future perspectives are exposed.

Galenic Lab-on-a-Chip concept for lipid nanocapsules production

“…Moreover, considering the multitude of possible chip designs to manufacture, in terms of dimensions, inlet/outlet numbers and positions, transparent measurement windows, these chip systems require specific holders and connectors. Hence, 3D printing technology has gained increasing attention to fabricate chips and holders including fluidic and electric connections (50,51). However, to the best of our knowledge, only a few studies have investigated the use of 3D printed chips for nanomedicine formulation, and all were made of polylactic acid (52 54).…”

Can 3D Printing Bring Droplet Microfluidics to Every Lab?—A Systematic Review

“…The resin costs are also reasonable, and as the technology spreads, the situation will only improve. However, resin has biochemical compatibility issues, as discussed in numerous works [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ].…”

“…To further assess their viability on a larger scale, we must analyze biological and chemical applications using 3DP droplet microfluidic chips. We will not go into details on applications demonstrated in particular papers, as that has already been done in several reviews in the past [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. For the analysis in this section, we used the same dataset as in Section 2.2 .…”

“…Printing materials have also improved, and more recent options are significantly better at biological and chemical compatibility [ 2 , 14 , 16 , 17 ]. This trend enables a growing number of biological and chemical applications [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. Is it perhaps the right time for every research lab to own a 3D printer?…”

“…The number of papers on base technology could give the wrong impression that the field is still in its infancy. It is not, as evidenced by the number of demonstrated applications in chemistry and biology, including such complex applications as cell culturing and organ-on-chip [ 6 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 ]. In addition, a significant number of reviews have analyzed biological and chemical compatibility [ 2 , 14 , 16 , 17 ].…”