Trends on physical understanding of bioink printability

Abstract

Recently, 3D bioprinting is developed as an emerging approach, increasingly applied to materials for healthcare; while, the precise placement of cells and materials, and the shape fidelity of forming constructs is of great importance for successful application of 3D bioprinting. Research efforts have been made to develop new bioinks as “raw materials” with better biocompatibility and biofunctionality, but the printability of bioinks is largely ignored and still needs to be carefully examined to enable robotic bioprinting. This article aims to introduce a recent published review (Appl. Phys. Rev. 2018, 5, 041304) on the evaluation of bioink printability by Huang’s research group from University of Florida. Huang et al. comprehensively reviewed the bioink printability based on the physical point of view during inkjet printing, laser printing, and microextrusion, and a series of self-consistent time scales and dimensionless quantities were utilized to physically understand and evaluate bioink printability. This article would be helpful to know the trends on physical understanding of bioink printability.