To reduce the costs and time needed for advanced drug development, human/organ-on-a-chip development is needed. Ngoc Duy, Ph.D candidate at the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) of the National University of Singapore, is working on brain-on-a-chip-technology. At the international MicroNanoConference he’ll talk about new laser-technology for 3D bioprinting.
Scientists expect that organ-on-a-chip technology could result in more efficient drug development and a reduction in the need for animal experiments. Ngoc Duy focuses on novel near infrared light (NIR) laser 3D bioprinting-technology. This technology can be used for constructing the building blocks needed to grow tissues or organs.
When asked for the benefits of NIR-lasertechnology, Ngoc Duy says: “I think the first advantage of using NIR-lasers is the high resolution. The resolution is one of the most important challenges to solve. This is due to the complexity of tissue organs structure.”
“Secondly, this method is suitable for biomedical engineering, including surgical operations and in vivo applications, such as the elimination of a preshaping scaffold and the prevention of contamination, as well as reagent delivery and precise cell deposition”, the Ph.D. candidate says.
Developing lasertechnology for bioprinting is hard, because of the precise tissue structures: “As the complex solid organs as kidney, lung or liver, for example, the cross-section of liver lobule, single cells require high-resolution printing to print this organ. We are working to improve this technology. I think we need to optimize it further. We expect to find the right partners to put this technology on the market.”
Ngoc Duy says many companies are working on using lasertechnology for bioprinting: “Currently, there are several companies using pulse laser for bioprinting, such as Poietis and Precise Bio (Co-founder, Dr. Anthony Atala from Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, WFIRM). At the moment, they are focusing on skin printing. Poietis is working with L’Oreal building skin models for cosmetic testing, and WFIRM is busy with a phase II clinical trial.”
