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EDITORIAL

A Foreword from the Editor

Editor-in-Chief: Chee Kai CHUA
Executive Director, Singapore Centre for 3D Printing
Professor, Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Cluster
School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering
Nanyang Technological University

In 2015, “bioprinting” became an official term in the • Information technologies and basic research
Oxford Dictionary. It was defined as “the use of 3D • Materials and formulation
printing technology with materials that incorporate • Cell source and biotechnology for additive man-
[1]
viable living cells” . Mankind’s first thought on bio- ufacturing
[2]
printing dates back to more than a decade ago , • 3D bioprinting technologies
when bioprinting was seen as an interdisciplinary • New design and fabrication paradigm
field between 3D printing and tissue engineering to • Applied research purpose & evaluation of 3D
create 3D human tissues/organs only. However, recent
novel applications of bioprinting, such as tissue mo- printed products
dels for drug testing, medical implants for reconstruc- • Associated social implications [4–6]
tive surgeries and customised meat/food for persona- In the inaugural issue, three reviews , four re-
[7–10]
[11]
lized meals, have demonstrated the wider applicability search articles and one perspective article
and penetration of this new technology beyond tissue have been published to display the wide range of in-
regeneration. According to Roots Analysis, the market teresting topics that will be considered by the IJB edi-
for 3D bioprinted products is likely to reach USD 615 torial board. These topics include bioprintable hydro-
[3]
million by 2024 and USD 10 billion by 2030 . The gels, in situ bioprinting, food printing, stem cell print-
commercial interests and prospects for bioprinting is ing, scaffold printing, and vascularization.
huge. Therefore, to meet the future needs and devel- To further encourage research in this area, our pub-
opments of this fast-growing field, a brand new jour- lisher, Whioce Publishing Pte Ltd, has decided to
nal, International Journal of Bioprinting (IJB), waive publication charges for the first two issues of
has been launched. the journal’s first volume. Therefore, we strongly
IJB is a biannual, double-blind peer reviewed, open welcome all who are interested in bioprinting research
access journal, dedicated to publishing original re- to join us as authors, reviewers or editorial board
search articles/reviews—amongst other submission members. It is the hope of the entire editorial team of
categories—on the use of 3D printing technology with IJB that this journal will fulfil the needs of those spe-
materials that incorporate viable living cells or bio- cialising in bioprinting and facilitate discourses and
logical elements to produce tissue or biotechnological advances in the field.
products. The scope of this journal covers (but is not
limited to) the following: http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJB.2015.01.002.

A Foreword from the Editor. © 2015 Chee Kai CHUA. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attri-
bution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribu-
tion, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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