Organ Printing: Preprocessing, Processing and Postprocessing
- pdf version of the abstract

Abstract
Computer-aided tissue engineering or application of rapid prototyping technologies is one of the booming area in tissue engineering. Rapid prototyping is a computer-aided layer by layer deposition. We would like to present a concept of organ printing and some preliminary data. We defined organ printing as a computer-aided 3D tissue engineering of living organs based on direct simultaneous deposition of cells and hydrogels and principles of self-assembly. Thus the essense of proposed organ printing approach include i) precised computer-aided and controlled placement or deposition of cells or cell aggregates; ii) simultaneous deposition of cells and hydrogels; iii) application of principles of biological self-assembly or cell aggregates fusion. Organ printing could be divided on three main technological steps: pre-processing or development of "blueprints" or computer-aided design (CAD) for organs for organ; actual printing; and postprocessing or organ conditioining and accelated tissue and organ maturation. the three elmnet of organ printing technology include "bioprinter" or cell deposition device; "bioink" or self-assembling cell aggregates; and "biopaper" or intelligent hydrogels. We will argue and present some preliminary evidence that organ prointing technology will dramatically accelerate and optimize tissue and organ assembly.