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PERSPECTIVE

Bioethical and Legal Issues in 3D Bioprinting

Anastasia Kirillova 1,†,* , Stanislav Bushev , Aydar Abubakirov , Gennady Sukikh 1
1
2,†
1 National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology Named After Academician V.I. Kulakov of
the Ministry of Healthcare of Russian Federation, Moscow, 117513, Russia
2 Department of Philosophy, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, 119991, Russia
† These authors contributed equally to this work.

Abstract: Bioethical and legal issues of three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting as the emerging field of biotechnology have
not yet been widely discussed among bioethicists around the world, including Russia. The scope of 3D bioprinting includes
not only the issues of the advanced technologies of human tissues and organs printing but also raises a whole layer of
interdisciplinary problems of modern science, technology, bioethics, and philosophy. This article addresses the ethical and
legal issues of bioprinting of artificial human organs.
Keywords: Three-dimensional printing, Bioethics, Ethical issues, Regulatory concerns, Artificial ovary, Oncofertility

*Corresponding Author: Anastasia Kirillova, National Medical Research Center for Obstetrics, Gynecology and Perinatology Named After
Academician V.I. Kulakov of the Ministry of Healthcare of Russian Federation, Moscow, 117513, Russia; stasia.kozyreva@gmail.com
Received: February 16, 2020; Accepted: March 16, 2020; Published Online: April 28, 2020

(This article belongs to the Special Section: Bioprinting in Russia)
Citation: Kirillova A, Bushev S, Abubakirov A, et al., 2020, Bioethical and Legal Issues in 3D Bioprinting, Int J Bioprint,
6(3): 272. DOI: 10.18063/ijb.v6i3.272.

1 Introduction be called the stage of “apologetics,” when doubts
about the possibility of implementing bioprinting
Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting of have been dispelled, successes of using the
tissue-engineered constructs and prototype organs technology for bioprinting tissues and organs have
for regenerative medicine is one of the most rapidly been demonstrated, basic techniques and methods
developing and promising areas of biotechnology. have been worked out, and a number of technical
There are already more than a dozen leading
companies in medical bioprinting: EnvsionTEC restrictions for implementing the technology have
(Germany), RegenHu (Switzerland), Poetis been overcome. The latest advances in bioprinting
(France), Organovo (USA), Sciperio/nScript technologies and biofabrication approaches are
(USA), Cellink (Sweden/USA), Allevi (formerly indeed impressive. Since the pioneering work
[3]
BioBots) (USA), BioDevices (USA), three of organ printing , the scientific community
Dynamics systems (USA), Aspect Biosystems of biofabrication has been developed, uniting
(Canada), Rokit (South Korea), 3D Bioprinting biologists, medical doctors, physicists, chemists,
[4]
Solutions (Russia), etc. . The development of 3D and computer scientists . Although the technology
[1]
bioprinting technologies has even been called the progressed very fast, on the onset of its development
megatrend of the fourth industrial revolution . the possibility of functional human organ bioprinting
[2]
To date, the development of bioprinting seemed like a highly desirable, yet a long-term, and
technology completed the first stage, which can goal . Now, decades later with the successes in
[4]
© 2020 Kirillova, et al. 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.
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