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International Journal of Bioprinting Design and optimization of 3DP bioscaffolds

such as the triply periodic minimal surface structures. a cylindrical scaffold with channels, as an example, was
46
It creates significant challenges to the fabrication process utilized in this study, the model can be applied to design
due to the light scattering effect, an intrinsic defect of light- and optimize scaffolds with arbitrary shapes (e.g., lattice
based 3D printing that can deviate propagating light to and gyroid) to achieve enhanced biological functions
unilluminated regions (voids and channels, for instance) (e.g., vascularization and spinal cord repair), which will be
and thus result in deformation and blockage of channeled demonstrated in forthcoming works.
structures. To address this issue, He et al. proposed a new
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photoinhibition approach that can effectively suppress the Acknowledgments
light scattering effect via a mechanism of simultaneous None.
photoabsorption and free-radical reaction, thereby
improving the printing resolution (~1.2 to ~2.1 pixels Funding
depending on swelling) and shape fidelity (geometric error
of less than 5%) of DLP printing. This approach promotes The authors acknowledge the financial support received
the capability of DLP in patterning soft hydrogels to a new from the National Natural Science Foundation of China
level at which functional porous scaffolds with microsized (52075158) and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan
features (such as voids, channels, and thin walls) can be Province (2021JJ30109).
fabricated successfully. Although a cylindrical scaffold
was used for demonstration in this study, the model and Conflict of interest
the optimization method can be applied to optimize The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
other scaffolds’ geometric parameters, such as the gyroid
structure with a triply periodic minimal surface. Author contributions
5. Conclusion Conceptualization: Xiaoxiao Han, Feng Chen
Data curation: Jing Li, Xiaolong Zhu, Ning He,
Light-based 3D printing enables the patterning of Haotian Zhu
hydrogel materials in the formation of architecturally Formal analysis: Jing Li, Na Li
sophisticated scaffolds that can better biomimic native Funding acquisition: Xiaoxiao Han
tissue microenvironments. However, it is a challenge to Methodology: Jing Li, Feng Chen, Meixia Wang
determine the optimal parameters using a purely trial-and- Project administration: Xiaoxiao Han, Feng Chen
error method during the designing process of a scaffold, as Software: Jing Li, Feng Chen
many parameters need to be optimized simultaneously. To Supervision: Xiaoxiao Han
gain a better understanding of the cell growth behaviors of Validation: Jing Li, Xiaolong Zhu, Meixia Wang
scaffolds designed with various parameters and facilitate Visualization: Jing Li, Na Li
the designing process of complex scaffolds, a multi-physics Writing – original draft: Jing Li
model incorporating oxygen mass transfer, fluid mechanics, Writing – review & editing: Feng Chen, Xiaoxiao Han
cellular oxygen consumption, and cell growth is proposed in
this study for modeling cell growth in bioprinted scaffolds Ethics approval and consent to participate
under dynamic culturing. The model takes into account
material, geometry, cell, and culturing parameters and is Not applicable.
able to output many physical fields, such as cell density,
oxygen concentration, and hypoxic region. Therefore, Consent for publication
it is a useful tool to guide the design of scaffolds. The Not applicable.
model’s accuracy was verified by comparing the simulated
results with those of cell proliferation experiments, which Availability of data
demonstrated good agreement. The parametric study
showed that a large number of parameters greatly influence Data used in this work are available from the corresponding
authors upon reasonable request.
oxygen transportation and cell growth behaviors. We
then showcased its effectiveness in promoting scaffold Further disclosure
performance by optimizing the geometric parameters
of channeled scaffolds, where the interplay between an Part of or the entire set of findings has been presented in
increase in cell density and a reduction in cell count a conference: International Journal of Bioprinting in the
occurred when channel volume fraction rose. Although BDMC 2023 Conference.

Volume 10 Issue 3 (2024) 297 doi: 10.36922/ijb.1838