Page 402 - IJB-10-3

International

Journal of Bioprinting

RESEARCH ARTICLE
A new solution for in situ monitoring of

shape fidelity in extrusion-based
bioprinting via thermal imaging

Simone Giovanni Gugliandolo , Egon Prioglio , Davide Moscatelli ,
1,2
1
2
and Bianca Maria Colosimo *
1
1 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Via La Masa, 1, 20156, Milano, Italy
2 Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”, Politecnico di
Milano, Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, 20133, Milano, Italy

Abstract
Bioprinting is an interdisciplinary study field, where additive manufacturing is
combined with tissue engineering and material sciences. The ever-increasing need
for personalized medicine fueled interest in the possibility of using this technique to
reproduce biological tissues, allowing bioprinting to establish itself as one of the most
promising approach in biomedical research. Producing bioconstructs that resemble
living tissues is a very complex and multi-step procedure. Given the complexity
of the processes involved, the literature still lacks robust solutions for monitoring
the bioprinted construct quality, especially in situ and in-line. Here, a novel non-
destructive approach for monitoring the geometries of bioprinted constructs based
on infrared (IR) imaging is proposed. Besides the intuitive use of IR information to
*Corresponding author: gain insight on the temperature signature, we propose IR video imaging as a viable
Bianca Maria Colosimo solution to overcome traditional problems of visible-range imaging for geometry
(biancamaria.colosimo@polimi.it)
reconstruction with transparent bioinks, especially when precise information on
Citation: Gugliandolo SG, the last printed layer only is required. The results obtained show a significant new
Prioglio E, Moscatelli D,
Colosimo BM. A new solution direction for in-line monitoring of bioprinting processes.
for in situ monitoring of shape
fidelity in extrusion-based
bioprinting via thermal imaging. Keywords: Additive manufacturing; 3D bioprinting; Thermal imaging; Monitoring
Int J Bioprint. 2024;10(3):2021.
doi: 10.36922/ijb.2021
Received: October 12, 2023
Accepted: December 28, 2023 1. Introduction
Published Online: March 22, 2024
Bioprinting is an additive manufacturing (AM) technology whose goal is to fabricate parts
Copyright: © 2024 Author(s).
This is an Open Access article that mimic the functionality of real tissues and organs by combining cells and biomaterials
distributed under the terms of the with a specific three-dimensional (3D) spatial organization. As in traditional AM, the
Creative Commons Attribution goal is achieved with the use of computer-aided design (CAD) to generate 3D models of
License, permitting distribution,
and reproduction in any medium, the geometry of the tissue or organ of interest to produce bioconstructs that have many
provided the original work is applications in regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, reconstructive surgery, drug
properly cited. discovery, pharmacokinetics, food sector, and basic medical and cell biology research.
1,2
Publisher’s Note: AccScience Thus, one of the main challenges is to avoid the death of living cells during the printing
Publishing remains neutral with process. In light of these numerous applications and due to the increasing interest
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional especially in personalized medicine, bioprinting has attracted attention in recent years
3
affiliations. from both academia and industry. During the last decade, many new techniques and

Volume 10 Issue 3 (2024) 394 doi: 10.36922/ijb.2021