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Magnetic levitational bioassembler
of defense or three contours of biosafety. We truly scaffold-free technology. On the other hand,
founded commercial thermo-reversible hydrogel, it is becoming increasingly apparent that without
which allowed safe delivery of viable tissue biomaterials, this field could not evolve. How
spheroids without preliminary undesirable tissue could these obvious contradictions be logically
fusion. Magnetic levitational bioassembly of 3D solved? How can one still use biomaterials and,
tissue constructs from chondrospheres (tissue at the same time, call magnetic biofabrication
spheroids prepared from a primary culture of technology scaffold-free? At first, we must
human chondrocytes) using original magnetic remember that any bioprinting or biofabrication
levitational bioassembler have been successfully technology has three main steps: (i) Pre-processing
performed (Figure 5). After a short incubation, the or design digital model and fabrication of building
bioassembled 3D tissue constructs were fixed in blocks; (ii) processing or actual biofabrication or
formalin and delivered to the earth for subsequent bioassembly of 3D tissue and organs construct
histological investigation. The correspondent from building blocks; and (iii) post-processing.
article has been accepted for publication . Second, to be precise, scaffold-free formative
[25]
9 Challenges and future perspectives: biofabrication refers to the second step or actual
Biomaterials are forever bioassembly, in which magnetic levitational
bioassembly is indeed scaffold-free. However,
The main challenge in the development of using scaffold-free levitational bioassembly at the
magnetic levitational bioassembly as well as in second step does not necessarily eliminate the need
the broader field – formative biofabrication is the for using biomaterials for fabrication of building
potential employment of biomaterials. On the one blocks at the first step and for accelerated tissue
hand, formative biofabrication is positioned as a maturation at the third, post-processing step. Thus,

A B

C

Figure 4. Schematic diagram of magnetic levitational bioassembly experiments at the Russian Orbital
Segment (with permission from Science Advances) . (A) The filling of the cuvettes and their delivery
[25]
to International Space Station (ISS); (B) the scheme of experiment on ISS; (C) the transportation of the
cuvettes from ISS to earth.

116 International Journal of Bioprinting (2020)–Volume 6, Issue 3