Tissue scaffolds from resin inks

Since 3D printing was developed in the 1980s, it has found many uses in medicine. The technology assists surgeons by creating patient-specific organ replicas they can practise on before performing complicated operations. It can provide surgical tools and custom-made prosthetics. And 3D printing holds the potential to solve some limitations of organ transplantation, by providing a way to manufacture personalised tissue engineering scaffolds, repair tissue defects in situ with cells, or even directly print implants.

Researchers at the University of Birmingham, UK, have now developed biodegradable polymer inks that will help take the technology a step further.