SBIR Phase I: 3D Printing of Bisphenol A-free Polycarbonates for Customizable Cell/Tissue Culture Platforms

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目将开发可定制的细胞/组织培养平台，使用新型可3D打印的不含双酚A的聚碳酸酯(BFP)材料和快速3D打印系统。2017年，3D细胞培养市场的价值为6.83亿美元，预计到2022年，收入将呈指数级增长，价值17亿美元。这一领域的快速增长主要是由于对定制的3D细胞/组织模型的需求，与传统的动物模型和平面细胞培养系统相比，这种模型更准确地概括了人体体内的生物学。3D细胞/组织模型有可能为药物发现行业提供更多与生理相关的反应，预计2022年药物发现行业的规模将达到860亿美元。使用BFP和完全集成的台式3D打印系统的拟议策略将促进按需生产不同的细胞/组织培养平台，并允许不同设计的快速迭代，以推动更多临床相关细胞/组织模型的开发，以满足制药、生物技术和生物研究的广阔市场。该项目的智力优势在于：(1)利用绿色化学开发具有可调节材料特性的新型3D可打印BFP材料；(2)快速打印可定制的细胞/组织培养原型，以支持各种3D细胞/组织模型。材料开发将包括建立试剂库和优化绿色化学过程。相关的材料性能，如刚性、弹性、光学透明度和小分子吸附等将被表征和优化。然后，这些材料将被用快速光基3D打印机打印出来，以制作细胞/组织培养平台的原型，然后评估它们的性能。特别是，3D打印的精度和分辨率将通过改变一系列制造参数来表征和优化，例如光曝光时间和强度。接下来，将根据设备完整性、材料降解以及机械和光学性能的变化来评估原型在细胞培养条件下的有效性。各种细胞/组织也将在这些原型设备上培养，以评估生物兼容性。这些成就将提供定制的培养平台，以促进在工业界和学术界设计更具生理学相关性的体外模型，以加速药物发现和生物学研究。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project will develop customizable cell/tissue culture platforms using a new class of 3D printable bisphenol A-free polycarbonate (BFP) materials and a rapid 3D printing system. The 3D cell culture market was valued at $683 million in 2017 with an exponential projected growth in revenue valued at $1.7 billion by 2022. The rapid growth in this sector is primarily driven by the demand for custom-made 3D cell/tissue models that more accurately recapitulate the human in vivo biology in comparison to conventional animal models and planar cell culture systems. 3D cell/tissue models have the potential to provide more physiologically relevant responses for the drug discovery industry which is estimated to reach $86 billion in 2022. The proposed strategy of using BFP and a fully integrated benchtop 3D printing system will facilitate the production of different cell/tissue culture platforms on demand and enable rapid iteration of different designs to drive forward the development of more clinically relevant cell/tissue models for a broad market in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and biological studies.The intellectual merit of this project lies in: (1) the development of novel 3D printable BFP materials with tunable material properties using green chemistry, and (2) the rapid 3D printing of customizable cell/tissue culture prototypes to support various 3D cell/tissue models. The material development will include the establishment of a reagent library and optimization of the green chemistry process. The relevant material properties such as stiffness, elasticity, optical transparency, and small molecule adsorption will be characterized and optimized. These materials will then be printed using a rapid light-based 3D printer to prototype cell/tissue culture platforms followed by evaluation of their performance. In particular, 3D printing precision and resolution will be characterized and optimized by varying a range of fabrication parameters such as light exposure time and intensity. Next, the efficacy of the prototypes under cell culture conditions will be assessed based on device integrity, material degradation, as well as changes in mechanical and optical properties. Various cells/tissues will also be cultured on these prototype devices to evaluate biocompatibility. These achievements will provide customized culture platforms to facilitate the engineering of more physiologically relevant in vitro models for accelerating drug discovery and biological studies in both industry and academia.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.