Development of a Microfluidic Open Source 3D bioprinting System (MOS3S) for the engineering of hierarchical tissues

The development of 3D bioprinting has shown great promise in the field of tissue engineering and disease modelling. However, the high cost of commercial 3D bioprinters has limited their accessibility, especially to those laboratories in resource-limited settings. Moreover, the need for a 3D bioprinting system capable of handling multi-material is growing. Therefore, the development of low-cost 3D bioprinters is necessary to make this technology accessible to a wider range of researchers. We have developed a customized, open-source, low-cost 3D bioprinter based on a commercial fused deposition modeling (FDM) 3D printer to address this issue. The bioprinter is designed to print biomaterials for tissue engineering purposes using a coaxial nozzle for in situ cross-linking the biomaterial, and it includes three syringe pumps that can also be used to deliver liquid in microfluidic chips. The affordability of our bioprinter is a significant advantage, as it makes it accessible to a broader spectrum of users, working in different fields such as tissue engineering, drug discovery, and disease modeling. The open-source nature of the bioprinter also allows for easy customization and adaptation to specific research needs. The performance of the 3D bioprinter has been validated by constructing lattice scaffolds which are being widely used in tissue engineering.3D生物打印（3D bioprinting）的发展在组织工程与疾病建模领域展现出广阔的应用前景。然而，商用3D生物打印机的高昂成本制约了其普及性，尤其对于资源受限环境中的实验室而言。此外，对可适配多材料的3D生物打印系统的需求正日益增长。因此，开发低成本3D生物打印机对于让该技术惠及更广泛的研究人员而言至关重要。为此，我们基于商用熔融沉积成型（Fused Deposition Modeling）3D打印机，开发了一款定制化、开源的低成本3D生物打印机以解决上述问题。该生物打印机采用同轴喷头实现生物材料的原位交联，可用于组织工程领域的生物材料打印，同时配备三台注射泵，亦可用于微流控芯片的液体输送。该生物打印机的低成本特性是其显著优势，能够让组织工程、药物研发及疾病建模等多个领域的更广泛用户群体使用该技术。其开源属性也便于针对特定研究需求进行定制与适配。目前，我们已通过构建组织工程领域广泛应用的晶格支架，验证了这款3D生物打印机的打印性能。