How Volumetric 3D Printing Became Compatible with Living Cells

A team from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) has just published its third improvement to a volumetric 3D printing technique that began in 2017. The latest version is 70 times more efficient than previous ones and, for the first time, allows for the printing of structures containing living cells.

The result of the new study is a life-size human ear printed in gelatin-based hydrogel. The ear contains embedded human cells that, six days after printing, were still alive and had begun to organize into networks. To understand why this matters, we need to go back nearly a decade.

Ear printed using the TVAM process (Photo Credit: LAPD / EPFL).

What is TVAM?

The technique in question is called tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (TVAM). Instead of building objects layer by layer like a conventional 3D printer, TVAM involves projecting a laser beam from different angles onto a rotating tank filled with photosensitive resin. Where the accumulated energy exceeds a certain threshold, the resin solidifies. The entire object is formed in a single step, in just a few seconds.