Chapter 11
Direct-Write Deposition of Thermogels
Sara Maria Giannitelli, Valeria Chiono, and Pamela Mozetic
Abstract
The use of biocompatible hydrogels has widely extended the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) in
the biomedical field leading to the production of 3D tissue and organ analogs for in vitro and in vivo
studies.
In this work, the direct-write deposition of thermosensitive hydrogels is described as a facile route to
obtain 3D cell-laden constructs with controlled 3D structure and stable behavior under physiological
conditions.
Key words Thermogels, Direct-write deposition, 3D constructs, Tissue engineering (TE), Additive
manufacturing (AM)
1 Introduction
Additive manufacturing (AM) of hydrogel-based materials has
attracted growing interest as it enables the production of complex
functional living tissues incorporating cells and/or bioactive molecules into three-dimensional structures. This emerging tool appears
to be promising for advancing tissue engineering (TE) toward the
fabrication of functional tissue and organ analogs for transplantation [1], as well as for drug screening and cancer or disease in vitro
modeling [2, 3]. Thus, several research groups have adapted different AM techniques to generate cell-laden constructs [4, 5]. Such
constructs can be obtained starting from a bioink, which is a
suspension of cells in an aqueous solution based on hydrogels
precursors, both of natural and synthetic origin, made insoluble
in water through crosslinking processes (chemical or physical crosslinking). However, to achieve an accurate reproduction of the
designed architecture, hydrogels have to meet specific requirements
in terms of viscosity and gelation rate, which limits the number of
formulations that can be processed by AM [6]. Moreover, the
crosslinking process must be non-cytotoxic for embedded cells
and should guarantee adequate structural integrity and mechanical
Alberto Rainer and Lorenzo Moroni (eds.), Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2147, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0611-7_11,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
137
Direct-Write Deposition of Thermogels
Sara Maria Giannitelli, Valeria Chiono, and Pamela Mozetic
Abstract
The use of biocompatible hydrogels has widely extended the potential of additive manufacturing (AM) in
the biomedical field leading to the production of 3D tissue and organ analogs for in vitro and in vivo
studies.
In this work, the direct-write deposition of thermosensitive hydrogels is described as a facile route to
obtain 3D cell-laden constructs with controlled 3D structure and stable behavior under physiological
conditions.
Key words Thermogels, Direct-write deposition, 3D constructs, Tissue engineering (TE), Additive
manufacturing (AM)
1 Introduction
Additive manufacturing (AM) of hydrogel-based materials has
attracted growing interest as it enables the production of complex
functional living tissues incorporating cells and/or bioactive molecules into three-dimensional structures. This emerging tool appears
to be promising for advancing tissue engineering (TE) toward the
fabrication of functional tissue and organ analogs for transplantation [1], as well as for drug screening and cancer or disease in vitro
modeling [2, 3]. Thus, several research groups have adapted different AM techniques to generate cell-laden constructs [4, 5]. Such
constructs can be obtained starting from a bioink, which is a
suspension of cells in an aqueous solution based on hydrogels
precursors, both of natural and synthetic origin, made insoluble
in water through crosslinking processes (chemical or physical crosslinking). However, to achieve an accurate reproduction of the
designed architecture, hydrogels have to meet specific requirements
in terms of viscosity and gelation rate, which limits the number of
formulations that can be processed by AM [6]. Moreover, the
crosslinking process must be non-cytotoxic for embedded cells
and should guarantee adequate structural integrity and mechanical
Alberto Rainer and Lorenzo Moroni (eds.), Computer-Aided Tissue Engineering: Methods and Protocols,
Methods in Molecular Biology, vol. 2147, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0611-7_11,
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2021
137