Page 381 - IJB-9-6

International

Journal of Bioprinting

REVIEW ARTICLE
Biomimetic 3D bioprinting approaches to

engineer the tumor microenvironment

Fabiano Bini , Salvatore D’Alessandro , Tarun Agarwal , Daniele Marciano ,
3
4
1,2
1
Serena Duchi , Enrico Lucarelli , Giancarlo Ruocco , Franco Marinozzi , and
7
5,6
1
2
Gianluca Cidonio *
2
1 Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy
2 Center for Life Nano- & Neuro-Science (CLN2S), Fondazione Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Rome,
Italy
3 Department of Bio-Technology, Koneru Lakshmaiah Education Foundation, Vaddeswaram, AP,
India
4 School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road,
London, United Kingdom
5 Aikenhead Centre for Medical Discovery St Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
6 Department of Surgery, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
7
Osteoncology, Bone and Soft Tissue Sarcomas and Innovative Therapies Unit, IRCCS Istituto
Ortopedico Rizzoli, Bologna, Italy
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: 3D printing of bioinspired materials)
Abstract

With the increasing incidence and mortality rates, cancer remains a major health
challenge in the world. Despite advances in therapies and clinical programs, the
efficacy of anti-cancer drugs often fails to translate from pre-clinical models to patient
clinical trials. To date, pre-clinical cancer models, including two-dimensional cell
*Corresponding author: cultures and animal models, have limited versatility and accuracy in recapitulating
Gianluca Cidonio
(gianluca.cidonio@iit.it) the complexity of human cancer. To address these limitations, a growing focus has
fostered the development of three-dimensional (3D) tumor models that closely
Citation: Bini F, D’Alessandro S,
Agarwal T, et al., 2023, resemble the in vivo tumor microenvironment and heterogeneity. Recent efforts
Biomimetic 3D bioprinting have leveraged bioengineering technologies, such as biofabrication, to engineer
approaches to engineer the tumor new platforms that mimic healthy and diseased organs, aiming to overcome the
microenvironment. Int J Bioprint,
9(6): 1022. shortcomings of conventional models, such as for musculoskeletal tissues. Notably,
https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.1022 3D bioprinting has emerged as a powerful tool in cancer research, offering precise
Received: May 30, 2023 control over cell and biomaterial deposition to fabricate architecturally complex and
Accepted: July 28, 2023 reproducible functional models. The following review underscores the urgent need
Published Online: August 22, 2023 for more accurate and relevant 3D tumor models, highlighting the advantages of
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s). the use of biofabrication approaches to engineer new biomimetics platforms. We
This is an Open Access article provide an updated discussion on the role of bioengineering technologies in cancer
distributed under the terms of the research and modeling with particular focus on 3D bioprinting platforms, as well
Creative Commons Attribution
License, permitting distribution, as a close view on biomaterial inks and 3D bioprinting technologies employed in
and reproduction in any medium, cancer modeling. Further insights into the 3D bioprinting tissue-specific modeling
provided the original work is panorama are presented in this paper, offering a comprehensive overview of the
properly cited.
new possibilities for cancer study and drug discovery.
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with
regard to jurisdictional claims in Keywords: Cancer modeling; 3D bioprinting; Biomimetic; Disease modeling
published maps and institutional
affiliations.

Volume 9 Issue 6 (2023) 373 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijb.1022