A team of researchers at Texas A&M University is developing a highly printable bioink as a platform to generate anatomical-scale functional tissues.
Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar and the Texas A&M team are working together to develop these bioinks, known as nanoengineered ionic-covalent entanglement (NICE) bioinks that combine nonreinforcement and ionic-covalent network to provide more effective reinforcement, resulting in stronger structures, according to a news release. Results from a study were published in the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials and Interfaces.
Once the bioprinting phase is complete, the cell-laden NICE networks are crosslinked, forming stronger scaffolds and allowing labs to produce full-scale, cell-friendly reconstructions of human body parts, including ears, blood vessels, cartilage and bone segments. The enclosed cells then deposit new proteins that calcify to form a mineralized bone over three months.
“The …