Bioprinting inside the body for a more effective treatment of stomach ulcers

Bioprinting technologies have been advancing quite rapidly in recent years. In the medical sector, this method allows cells and biomaterials to be combined and deposited layer by layer, aiming to create biomedical models with the same properties as living tissues. In addition, there are many bioprinting projects that focus on the creation of human organs in three dimensions. Today we present you a new application of 3D printing in medicine, which could potentially facilitate the treatment of ulcers of the digestive system. The recently developed technique involves printing directly onto stomach. How does it work?

Researchers at Tsinghua University in China have developed a prototype that uses additive manufacturing of biomaterials to treat gastric wounds from inside the body. The research paper titled “Preliminary engineering for in situ in vivo bioprinting: a novel micro bioprinting platform for in situ in vivo bioprinting at a gastric wound site” was published in a scientific journal called IOPscience.

Bioprinting directly onto stomach

The team of researchers developed a micro-robot that is 30mm wide and 43mm long ( when folded), and can reach 59mm once it is deployed. David Hoelzle, a mechanical engineer at Ohio State University, said, “The team has designed ingenious mechanisms that enable a compact system to penetrate the body and, once the narrow entry restrictions are overcome, it deploys to cover a large work area”. For the sake of the experiment, the Chinese researchers attached the device in question to an endoscope to introduce it into a transparent stomach model. When it arrived at its destination, the prototype was able to begin bioprinting gels loaded with epithelial and muscle cells on the stomach wall!