In Canada, researchers at the University of British Columbia developed a new bio-ink that can fabricate human organs and tissue at a lower cost and more efficiently than ever before. The bio-ink uses a number of biomaterials including gelatin methacrylate (GelMA), a hydrogel that can serve as a building block in bio-printing that can be molded into specific shapes.
They used three different GelMA hydrogels—porcine skin, cold-water fish skin and cold-soluble gelatin and found the cold-soluble gelatin was the best performer for 3D organ printing. It was able to form healthy tissue scaffolds while also being thermally stable at room temperature which is one of the biggest challenges to conventional hydrogels. Their innovation could help further regenerative medicine advances.
Keekyoung Kim, an assistant professor at UBC Okanagan’s School of Engineering told Phys.org “The next step is to investigate whether or not cold-soluble GelMA-based tissue scaffolds are can be used long-term both in the laboratory and in real-world transplants.”