3D Stem Cell Printing for Animal-Free Drug Development

打印组织和微型器官最近已经通过使用改进的喷墨打印机技术实现，从而使生物织物领域成为可能。直接打印活细胞的新方法为药物发现和治疗应用的组织科学和工程开辟了新的范例。我们开创了世界上第一个基于阀门的生物打印机，能够打印人类胚胎干细胞，而不会损坏细胞，同时保持其生物功能。该项目旨在开发第一台基于瓣膜打印技术的商业干细胞生物打印机，由全球机器人控制公司（Renishaw Ltd）和一家专门从干细胞中开发人类心肌细胞用于药物测试的SME（ClydeBiosciences Ltd）领导。我们将开发一种新型的干细胞打印机，将雷尼绍的IP保护3D打印平台与现有的基于阀的细胞打印技术相结合。然后，新平台将被验证用于使用来自领先干细胞公司Roslin Cellab Ltd的人类干细胞生产人类心脏和肝脏组织，并测试它们对药物的反应。新工具不仅使我们能够生产高质量的人体组织，用于可能更可靠的无动物药物测试，而且还为制药行业，生物技术公司和干细胞生物学家提供了一系列高通量应用。

Printing tissues and mini-organs have recently been achieved by using modified ink-jet printer technology enabling the fieldof biofabrication. The novel method of direct printing live cells opens up new paradigm in tissue science and engineering fordrug discovery and therapeutic applications. We have pioneered the world first valve based bioprinter that is capable ofprinting human embryonic stem cells without damaging the cells while maintaining their biological functions. This projectaims to develop the first commercial stem cell bioprinter baed on the valve-based printing technology, working in aconsortium led by the global player in robotic control (Renishaw Ltd) and a SME (ClydeBiosciences Ltd) specialised indeveloping human heart muscle cells from stem cells for drug testing. We will develop a new type of stem cell printer byintegrating IP protected 3d printing platform from Renishaw with existing valve based cell printing technology. The newplatform will then be validated for producing human heart and liver tissues using human stem cells from leading stem cellcompany Roslin Cellab Ltd) and testing their responses to drugs. The new tool will not only allow us to produce high qualityhuman tissue for potentially more reliable animal free drug testing, but also enable a range of high throughput applicationsfor pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology companies and stem cell biologists.