Bioprinting of vascularized bone tissue
3D printed construct.
This project is funded by the German Research Community (DFG) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and carried out in cooperation with the Laboratory for MEMS Applications (Department of Microsystems Applications-IMTEK, Freiburg). We are member of the 3D-Bioprinting consortium (https://www.microtec-suedwest.de/projekte/bmbf-3d-bio-net/3dbionet-projektziele) and the Freiburg 3D Printing Alliance (https://www.fmf.uni-freiburg.de/de/projekte/freiburger-3d-druck-allianz/die-freiburger-3d-druck-allianz-f3d).
Bioprinting allows an orderly three-dimensional arrangement of cells in the manufacturing process of the implants by which an already preformed geometric configuration of tissue structures can be specified during the printing process. In this interdisciplinary research project at the interface of microsystems technology and life sciences, different rapid prototyping methods and various hydrogels are first validated and optimized in vitro, both in relation to the establishment of a vasculogenic component consisting of umbilical endothelial cells (HUVECs), as well as on the support of the vitality and osteogenic differentiation potential of the osteogenic component, which is represented by human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). In view of a putative prospective clinical use of the bioprinted 3-dimensional vascularized bone tissue, in vivo validation will be performed in a subcutaneous SCID mouse xenograft model. This in vivo evaluation will be conducted by comparative analysis of HUVEC-mediated neovascularization and MSC-mediated osteogenesis in direct comparison to respective conventionally randomly cell-seeded hydrogels, in order to investigate whether the three -dimensional printing process yields advantages with respect to the velocity, quantity and quality of neovascularization and osteogenesis. . This project is funded by the German Research Community (DFG) and carried out in cooperation with the Laboratory for MEMS Applications (Department of Microsystems Applications-IMTEK, Freiburg).
