Recent Research

SCALABLE BIOFABRICATION OF HYBRID FUNCTIONAL 3D SCAFFOLDS VIA SYNERGY OF AUTOPILOT SINGLE-JET ELECTROSPUN 3D PCL FIBER SCAFFOLDS AND CELL-LADEN HYDROGELS

This work led by Dr. Chia-Fu Chou’s group, in collaboration with Drs. Chin-Lin Guo of IOP, AS, and Vahid Serpooshan, EMORY University & Georgia Tech University, USA, presents a novel biohybrid fabrication platform—combining biomimetic 3D electrospun (ES) scaffolds with precision cell-laden hydrogel patterning—to overcome scalability and mechanical limitations of conventional 3D bioprinting (3DB printing) for tissue/organ-scale constructs. This new advancement of 3D scaffolds fabrication via in-house Autopilot Single-Jet 3D Electrospinning (AJ-3D ES) allowed us to demonstrate, for the first time, multiple modalities of 3DB printing strategies, including contour 3DB printing onto ES scaffolds curvatures, such as ventricular shaped-PCL fiber scaffolds, pocket 3DB printing into scaffolds of macroscopic pockets, thus allowing us to fabricate both topographic and volumetric constructs. Our work addresses critical challenges in the biomedical field by enhancing the integration of electrospun PCL fiber scaffolds with hydrogel-based techniques to engineer robust, anatomically shaped tissue constructs. This work was selected as the issue Cover of ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces (in print).

Journal Links: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.5c07425