3D bioprinting: printable organs

Present situation worldwide and in Switzerland

In the field of tissue engineering, 3D bioprinting – the additive manufacturing of tissues and organs – has established itself as a promising forward-looking technology. 3D bioprinting differs from standard biomaterials printing in that live cells are either deposited on printed structures in a targeted manner or printed onto a substrate in biomaterials called bioinks following a precise spatial arrangement. In this way, artificial tissues can be produced layer by layer, enabling greater tissue complexity than standard methods of non-oriented cell seeding onto a substrate material. More complex tissue structures are able to better reproduce the physiological activity of human tissue. This is increasingly relevant for the pharmaceutical industry, as it allows it to improve predictive in vitro tests and reduce animal testing. In the EU, animal testing for cosmetic products and their ingredients has now been banned. Biologically relevant artificial skin and eye tissues are therefore of great importance. In regenerative medicine, 3D bioprinting enables the vascularisation of tissue constructs, which was previously impossible.

Implications for Switzerland

Switzerland is strongly positioned in all fields that stand to benefit from 3D bioprinting technologies, namely the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries as well as clinical medicine. Switzerland also numbers many firms working on aspects relevant to 3D bioprinting: automation (electronics, control software), machine parts (printer nozzles, valves, robotic arms) and cell culture (media, plastic). If Switzerland promotes this development by integrating the technology in existing industrial and medical processes and by fostering a network of relevant industry and research partners, it will be able to hold its own in global competition. Asian countries such as Korea and Singapore have already developed national strategies in this field. In the US, the public-private partnership BioFabUSA has been promoting projects in the field of bioadditive manufacturing since 2016 with a total funding volume of 300 million USD. Even though Switzerland boasts a global market leader in bioprinting (regenHU), the country currently has no comparable national strategy geared toward global technological leadership. Current funding schemes for additive manufacturing exclude the field of biomanufacturing/ bioadditive manufacturing using living cells. In order to remain globally competitive, national research programmes and initiatives must be established at the level of strongly application-oriented basic research.