3D printed corals could help energy production and coral conservation

3D printing technologies can be used to create complex and intricate structures by enabling a new level of design freedom. This is one of the main benefits of additive manufacturing, and one of the aspects many scientists around the world have been exploring over the years. Creating more complex designs means delving into new applications. One of these applications is increasing biodiversity. At Cambridge University and the University of California San Diego, researchers have 3D printed coral-inspired structures that are capable of growing dense populations of microscopic algae. Their results, reported in the journal Nature Communications, open the door to new bio-inspired materials and their applications for coral conservation.

In the ocean, corals and algae have an intricate symbiotic relationship. The coral provides a host for the algae, while the algae produce sugars to the coral through photosynthesis. This relationship is responsible for one of the most diverse and productive ecosystems on Earth, the coral reef. Dr Daniel Wangpraseurt, a Marie Curie Fellow from Cambridge’s Department of Chemistry explains: “In our lab, we’re looking for methods to copy and mimic these strategies from nature for commercial applications.” In other words, by 3D printing coral structures, the researchers were able to promote algae growth, which in turn feed the coral.

A close-up of a microalgal aggregate (scale bar = 10 µm) | Image via University of Cambridge

3D printed corals are made with bioprinting techniques

To create the coral, the team used bioprinting techniques capable of reproducing detailed structures that mimic the complex designs and functions of living tissues. Additionally to replicating the intricate structures of coral, the live cells had to be kept alive as the corals were being formed – far from being an easy task. The co-senior author Professor Shaochen Chen, from UC San Diego explains in more detail: “Most of these cells will die if we were to use traditional extrusion-based or inkjet processes because these methods take hours. It would be like keeping a fish out of the water; the cells that we work with won’t survive if kept too long out of their culture media. Our process is high throughput and offers really fast printing speeds, so it’s compatible with human cells, animal cells, and even algae cells in this case.”