A New Method to Print Vascularized Tissue
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Photo by Drew Hays
Biomanufactured organs are the next frontier of scientific research and development. But creating vascularized tissue is a challenging endeavor, (one that our friends at Volumetric Bio are very familiar with). However a technique called SWIFT, Sacrificial Writing into Functional Tissue, developed by researchers from Harvard may get us one step closer to overcoming the hurdle of vascularization.
Their method allows for hollow passageways that can be lined with endothelial cells to mimic blood vessels, which are critical for oxygen delivery to tissue. They were able to successfully create a perfusable cardiac tissue that was then able to beat concurrently over a 7 day period. They hope to continually improve upon this method with the goal of engineering fully functional, 3D printed human organs. Read what they learned below!