Biomaterials and Bioprinting to Enable Personalized Tissue Mimics

Each individual is unique, yet pharmaceutical companies design the same therapies for all of us using lab mice. In the future, the biofabrication of personalized tissue mimics offers the exciting possibility of individualized therapies. However, current biofabrication methods are greatly hampered by a lack of materials that are simultaneously biofunctional and reproducible. A cell’s behavior is directly influenced by its surrounding microenvironment; thus, ideally each cell type would be cultured in its own customizable biomaterial. To fulfill this need, my lab designs bespoke biomaterials that can be tailored to fit a range of applications. In one demonstration, I present a family of biomaterials that support the growth of patient-derived organoids, i.e. three-dimensional cell aggregates that demonstrate emergent, tissue-like behavior. While organoid cultures have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of human biology, current protocols rely on the use of Matrigel, a complex, heterogeneous material with large batch-to-batch variations. In contrast, our double-network hydrogels are formulated with recombinant biopolymers that can be fine-tuned to display a reproducible properties including printability. In a second example, I present a new “pick-and-place” 3D bioprinting strategy for the spatial positioning of organoids within a hydrogel support matrix. Using this method, we can fabricate large tissue structures composed of multiple organoids that fuse together. We demonstrate potential applications in the fabrication of neural “assembloids” composed of dorsal- and ventral-patterned neural organoids together with patient-derived brain cancer spheroids. We envision that these two technologies will be used together in the future to create personalized tissue models of individual patients.