du Chatinier Duilia N, Figler Kianti P, Agrawal Prajwal, Liu Wanjun, Zhang Yu Shrike
Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 65 Landsdowne Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Biomicrofluidics. 2021 Jul 29;15(4):041304. doi: 10.1063/5.0033280. eCollection 2021 Jul.
Microfluidics-enhanced bioprinting holds great promise in the field of biofabrication as it enables the fabrication of complex constructs with high shape fidelity and utilization of a broad range of bioinks with varying viscosities. Microfluidic systems contain channels on the micrometer-scale, causing a change in fluid behaviors, enabling unconventional bioprinting applications such as facilitating the precise spatial positioning and switching between bioinks with higher accuracy compared to traditional approaches. These systems can roughly be divided into three groups: microfluidic chips, co- and triaxial printheads, and printheads combining both. Although several aspects and parameters remain to be improved, this technology is promising as it is a step toward recapitulating the complex native histoarchitecture of human tissues more precisely. In this Perspective, key research on these different systems will be discussed before moving onto the limitations and outlook of microfluidics-enhanced bioprinting as a whole.
微流控增强生物打印在生物制造领域具有巨大潜力，因为它能够制造出形状保真度高的复杂结构，并能使用各种粘度不同的生物墨水。微流控系统包含微米级的通道，这会导致流体行为发生变化，从而实现非常规的生物打印应用，例如与传统方法相比，能够以更高的精度促进生物墨水的精确空间定位和切换。这些系统大致可分为三类：微流控芯片、同轴和三轴打印头以及结合了两者的打印头。尽管仍有几个方面和参数有待改进，但这项技术很有前景，因为它朝着更精确地再现人体组织复杂的天然组织结构迈出了一步。在本观点文章中，将先讨论这些不同系统的关键研究，然后再探讨微流控增强生物打印整体的局限性和前景。
