Living stem cells can be printed as a bioink into a photocurable, self-healing and shear-thinning alginate microgel supporting medium.

The alginate microgel bath rapidly self-heals and forms a stable medium that firmly holds the printed stem cells in place Scientists have developed a platform that prints bioink into 3D tissues using a supporting slurry of alginate microgel beads. The technique overcomes limitations of conventional bioprinted scaffolds and holds promise for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, drug screening and developmental biology.

Scaffold bioprinting, as the name suggests, involves depositing cells onto a temporary biodegradable template when fabricating tissue in the lab. The approach is imperfect; it’s associated with cytotoxicity and interrupted cell–cell interactions. As an alternative, a few studies have tested microgel supports in a scaffold-free process. ‘The challenge in translating a scaffold-free approach to bioprinting […]

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