Engineering ECM Bioinks to Biofabricate Microphysiological Systems for Disease Modeling and Precision Medicine

Despite the prevalence of highly printable bioinks, many fail to present the necessary extracellular matrix (ECM) cues necessary to support heterogeneous cell populations in vitro to accurately model both healthy and diseased tissues. We have developed a series of well-defined ECM-based hydrogel bioinks that can be tuned both in terms of their biochemical and mechanical profiles to support a variety of tissue types. These bioinks are compatible with 3D printers such as the CELLINK BIO X and LUMEN X, which we are deploying to biofabricate a portfolio of microphysiological systems, including metastasis-on-a-chip systems, a model of the pre-metastatic niche, a blood brain barrier platform, patient-derived tumor organoid models, and more.