Non-destructive mechanical assessment for optimization of 3D bioprinted soft tissue scaffolds

Brent Godau; Evan Stefanek; Sadaf Samimi Gharaie; Meitham Amereh; Erik Pagan; Zohreh Marvdashti; Eryn Libert-Scott; Samad Ahadian; Mohsen Akbari

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2022.104251

Non-destructive mechanical assessment for optimization of 3D bioprinted soft tissue scaffolds

iScience. 2022 Apr 13;25(5):104251. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104251. eCollection 2022 May 20.

Authors

Brent Godau^{1

2}, Evan Stefanek^{1

2}, Sadaf Samimi Gharaie¹, Meitham Amereh¹, Erik Pagan¹, Zohreh Marvdashti¹, Eryn Libert-Scott¹, Samad Ahadian³, Mohsen Akbari^{1

2

3

4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada.
² Centre for Advanced Materials and Related Technologies, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC V8P 5C2, Canada.
³ Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA.
⁴ School of Biomedical Engineering, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
⁵ Biotechnology Center, Silesian University of Technology, Akademicka 2A, 44-100 Gliwice, Poland.

Abstract

Characterizing the mechanical properties of engineered tissue constructs provides powerful insight into the function of engineered tissues for their desired application. Current methods of mechanical characterization of soft hydrogels used in tissue engineering are often destructive and ignore the effect of 3D bioprinting on the overall mechanical properties of a whole tissue construct. This work reports on using a non-destructive method of viscoelastic analysis to demonstrate the influence of bioprinting strategy on mechanical properties of hydrogel tissue scaffolds. Structure-function relationships are developed for common 3D bioprinting parameters such as printed fiber size, printed scaffold pattern, and bioink formulation. Further studies include mechanical properties analysis during degradation, real-time monitoring of crosslinking, mechanical characterization of multi-material scaffolds, and monitoring the effect of encapsulated cell growth on the mechanical strength of 3D bioprinted scaffolds. We envision this method of characterization opening a new wave of understanding and strategy in tissue engineering.

Keywords: Biomaterials; Materials science; Tissue Engineering.