Page 5 - IJB-4-2

EDITORIAL

Bioprinting science

1,2
Editor–in-Chief: Chee Kai Chua
1 Executive Director, Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, Singapore
2 Professor, Manufacturing and Industrial Engineering Cluster, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, College
of Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

http://dx.doi.org/10.18063/IJB.v4i2.149.

Accepted into Scopus last December, IJB has now been need a discovery of another new natural path, similar
officially indexed in Scopus document databases with to the discovery of iPSCs, but at tissue and organ level.
a total of 57 publications being listed. The CiteScore of Undoubtally, bioprinting is not a pathway already
IJB is expected to be available later this year according existing in nature, which partly explains why it is
to Elsevier. Coupled with successful indexing in Web not working as intended now. However, bioprinting
of Science since 2017, IJB is doubling its visibility and is a hybrid of man-made and natural processes. The
impact to the bioprinting research community. man-made component (i.e. 3D printing) has achieved
Currently, the natural biological development is the advanced development, but its natural component
only known path that arrives at a mature organism or a remains almost blank. We need a new discovery of
mature component of an organism. Bioprinting, rooted a natural path that could unlock the secret of rapid
slightly more on belief than evidence, is envisioned to tissue transformation. It may be termed in general as
be a shortcut or alternate pathway to replace natural bioprinting science. Perhaps, one day we could induce
biological development. Unfortunately, as of now even a rapidly growing tumour to go sideways to become a
its current state of the art is not working as intended due normal tissue or organ.
some challenges. Common challenges are the lack of This issue of IJB includes four reviews, five research
vascularisation or lack of resolution for recapitulating articles and one perspective. First, Choudhury et al.
microenvironment. However, as pointed out by Professor present a current landscape of commercial bioprinters ,
[1]
Shoufeng Yang (KU Leuven, Belgium) during a technical followed by Ng et al. reporting on the status of
seminar at Singapore Centre for 3D Printing, even an bioprinted artificial blood vessels . Shuai et al. review
[2]
isolated human organ, which comprises all the original postprinting physical stimulations and in particular
cells, compositions, vascularisation and architecture, they focus on osteogenesis-inducing mechanisms for
cannot be maintained alive for long term easily due to bone tissue engineering . Separately, Tan et al. provide
[3]
the limitation of current science and technology. Supply an overview of current materials and machines for
[4]
of vascularisation and sophistication in architecture of food printing . In research, Arab et al. report novel
bioprinting are necessary but not sufficient. ultrashort self-assembling peptide bioinks for 3D
[5]
So, is bioprinting the envisioned shortcut? The culture of muscle myoblast cells . Han et al. present
discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) design and fabrication of optimised vascular network by
[6]
might shed some light on this issue. In this process, a stereolithography for skin tissue engineering . Shuai
differentiated cell can go sideways to become another et al. report a multi-scale porous scaffold fabricated by
differentiated cell directly, without going back to the a combination of additive manufacturing and chemical
[7]
stem cell state to re-differentiate. This is a perfect etching process . Mandt et al. present the fabrication of
working shortcut, because it breaks the conventionally placental barrier structures within a microfluidic device
[8]
conceived only natural path by the discovery of a new by using two-photon polymerisation . Interestingly,
natural path. For the first time, the secret of shortcut at Rodriguez-Salvador et al. report a keyword network
cell level has been unlocked. mapping analysis which uncovers some research trends
What about at tissue and organ level? Perhaps we in 3D bioprinting . Finally, Lee et al. provide their
[9]
Bioprinting science. © 2018 Chua C K. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0
International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,
provided the original work is properly cited.
1