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International Journal of Bioprinting Applications of 3D printing in aging

new bioink and scaffold is comprehensive and has made big Acknowledgments
breakthroughs. However, to identify and create materials with None.
physiochemical and physiological properties that are close
to the human tissues and meanwhile have good printability
still require extensive investigations. Personalized food for Funding
the aging population is an outstanding idea empowered by This work was supported by the National Natural Science
3D printing, but the relatively high cost and low production Foundation of China (Grant No. 62271107), National
throughput have limited the adoption of this technology Key Research and Development Program of China
in most healthcare settings. 3D-printed drugs and drug (Grant No. 2022YFB3206100), Medico-Engineering
delivery systems have gone beyond what can be expected Cooperation Funds from University of Electronic Science
from traditional medications. It makes personalized dosage and Technology of China and China West Hospital (Grant
and dosage form a viable option in clinical practice, which No. ZYGX2022YGRH018), and the Department of Science
could not only reduce the damages caused by the generic and Technology of Sichuan Province of China (Grant No.
formulation but also increase drug efficacy for each individual 2022ZYD0076).
patient. Nevertheless, price, ethics, regulatory matters, and
other medical and nonmedical factors are still big hurdles Conflict of interest
that prevent 3D drug printing from being adopted in real-
world applications. 3D printing still has a long way to go The authors declare no conflict of interest.
before becoming the go-to technology for aging research
and aging care. In our humble opinion, future development Author contributions
in this area should be application-specific and goal-oriented, Conceptualization: Yi Zhang, Jing Yang, Xiaosheng Zhang
which means materials, printing platforms, and fabrication Writing—original draft: Yi Zhang, Meng Ma
process should be developed specifically for each particular Writing—review & editing: Meng Ma, Jun Gu, Dong-An
application. The highest priority is to develop materials for Wang, Siwei Bi, Ruiqi Liu, Xiaosheng Zhang, Jing
bioinks that match the physiological characteristics and Yang, Yi Zhang
mechanical properties of human tissue and organs, so that
more accurate disease models and transplantable organs Ethics approval and consent to participate
could be entirely 3D-printed. From another point of view,
although 3D printing has been widely used in the medical Not applicable.
field, its applications in the field of rehabilitation medicine
have just emerged in recent years. Rehabilitation is one Consent for publication
of the important fields of aging research. The use of 3D Not applicable.
printing to develop therapeutic and assistive devices, such as
hearing aid, limb aid, and disease onset monitoring device, Availability of data
to treat aging-related diseases and restore the activity of
daily life of the elderly people is a top priority. 3D printing Not applicable.
creates devices that are more convenient, more tailored to
the individual, and can perform more functions in a limited References
space. Future innovation in 3D printing technology should
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https://doi.org/10.1038/s41392-022-01251-0
Volume 9 Issue 4 (2023) 252 https://doi.org/10.18063/ijb.732