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REVIEW ARTICLE

3D Composite Bioprinting for Fabrication of Artificial

Biological Tissues

Yi Zhang, Bin Wang, Junchao Hu, Tianyuan Yin, Tao Yue, Na Liu, Yuanyuan Liu*

School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China

Abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is an important technology for fabricating artificial tissue. To effectively
reconstruct the multiscale structure and multi-material gradient of natural tissues and organs, 3D bioprinting has been
increasingly developed into multi-process composite mode. The current 3D composite bioprinting is a combination of two or
more printing processes, and oftentimes, physical field regulation that can regulate filaments or cells during or after printing
may be involved. Correspondingly, both path planning strategy and process control all become more complex. Hence, the
computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) system that is traditionally used in 3D printing system
is now facing challenges. Thus, the scale information that cannot be modeled in the CAD process should be considered in
the design of CAM by adding a process management module in the traditional CAD/CAM system and add more information
reflecting component gradient in the path planning strategy.

Keywords: 3D composite bioprinting; Biofabrication; Computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing;
Multiscale structure; Physical field control
*Correspondence to: Yuanyuan Liu, School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China;
yuanyuan_liu@shu.edu.cn

Received: June 20, 2020; Accepted: September 9, 2020; Published Online: December 4, 2020
Citation: Zhang Y, Wang B, Hu J, et al., 2021, 3D Composite Bioprinting for Fabrication of Artificial Biological Tissues. Int
J Bioprint, 7(1):299.http://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.v7i1.299

1. Introduction microvalve-based, laser-assisted, electrohydrodynamic
printing) [8-11] , and vat polymerization (stereolithography,
Driven by clinical needs, tissue engineering,
and
processing,
two-photon
bio-fabrication, and additive manufacturing have been digital light [12-14] . Each printing process is unique
polymerization)
deeply intersected, and this multi-disciplinary intersection
effectively promotes the rapid development of three- for its characteristics. Since natural tissues, such as
dimensional (3D) bioprinting technology. 3D bioprinting the heart, nerves, and blood vessels, tend to have
not only inherits the principle of additive manufacturing unique anisotropic fiber structures of exceptionally rich
[15]
but also has obvious particularity in printing ink and internal components , it is quite difficult to fabricate a
printing object. Specifically, the “ink” for 3D bioprinting bioconstruct that features multi-scale and heterogeneous
[16]
refers mostly to biological materials, cells, drugs, growth microstructures using a single-step printing process .
factors, etc. [1,2] The ideal printing process needs to Therefore, an increasing number of researches have
effectively fabricate items that imitate the structure and begun to integrate two or more printing processes with
composition of natural biological tissues and organs as different forming principles to prepare complex biological
well as take into account the regulation of the behavior structures or functional scaffolds, which is also the origin
of printed biological tissues/organs in the later cultivation of 3D composite bioprinting. In fact, 3D composite
and growth process [3,4] . bioprinting has become a research hotspot in the field of
It is well known that 3D bioprinting is divided into artificial biological tissue and organ construction. The
the following types: Material extrusion (mechanical/ current 3D composite bioprinting not only features a
pneumatic extrusion) [5-7] , material jetting (inkjet, combination of two or more printing processes but also

© 2020 Zhang, 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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