Rapid prototyping of complex tissues with laser assisted bioprinting (LAB)

Abstract: Laser assisted bioprinting (LAB) is an emerging tool for tissue engineering (TE) that allows printing of cells and liquid materials with a cell-level resolution, to reproduce the anisotropy of living tissues. We have integrated LAB in a dedicated workstation to allow rapid prototyping applications. After introducing the rationale of LAB in TE, we present the physical parameters related to laser induced forward transfer technique (LIFT), implemented in LAB. These parameters must be tuned to print viable cell patterns with respect to cell-level histological organization, and to high throughput manufacturing. Finally, we present some typical multi-component printing, 3D printing approaches, in vitro as well as in vivo .