A Bioprinter System for Fabricating Advanced Biomaterials

Bioprinting is an emerging technology that utilizes technical advancements in robotics and liquid handling for precise deposition of biological materials such as polymers and cells. The bioprinting industry is growing rapidly and there is an urgent need for training highly qualified personnel in this area and to update academic infrastructure accordingly. The requested equipment will directly support three research programs in the School of Biomedical Engineering at Dalhousie University focused on the design, fabrication and application of novel biomaterials. The equipment will also accelerate existing collaborations among researchers from four Faculties at Dalhousie University (Engineering, Medicine, Dentistry and Science) and help to initiate new collaborations with researchers across Canada developing cutting-edge biomaterials. The projects that this equipment will benefit include: (1) Engineering Scaffold-based and Scaffold-free 3D Cell Culture Microenvironments in the Frampton Lab; (2) Manufacture and Analysis of Lab-Grown Epidermal Tissues in the Frampton Lab; (3) Fabrication of Composite Fiber-Gel Soft Biomaterials in the Frampton Lab; (4) Rapid Liquid Printing of Blood-Brain Barrier Models in the Frampton Lab; (5) Simulating Mammalian-Microbe Interactions in the Mucosal Microenvironment in the Leung Lab; (6) Tracking Cell Fate in Heterogeneous Tumour Microenvironments in the Leung Lab; (7) Biomaterial Design for Endodontic Regeneration in the Leung Lab; (8) Manufacture and Analysis of Airway Microtissues in the Maksym Lab; and (9) Investigating Structure-Function Relationships in Airway Rings in the Maksym Lab. A precision bioprinter system will attract highly qualified personnel from physics, materials science, engineering, and the life sciences who wish to utilize bioprinting to enhance their research. Trainees from these disciplines will have the ability to rapidly develop new materials with complex geometries and compositions, which cannot be achieved with any of the existing equipment for liquid handling and rapid prototyping at Dalhousie University. The ease of use and versatility of the requested bioprinter system will allow existing resources and expertise at Dalhousie University to be best-utilized to see that the various projects listed above reach a state of research- and industry-readiness. It will also serve as an additional resource to enhance the capabilities of existing infrastructure targeted at fabrication and rapid prototyping of non-living structures.