3D Bioprinting and Organoids

Description

From 3D cell cultures, organoids, spheroids, to 3D bioprinted organoids, a lot of these concepts aren’t exactly explained accurately in the popular media, despite the fact that 3D tissue cultures are more than a decade old. In a recent Nature article, an organoid was defined as “a 3D multicellular in vitro tissue construct (using stem cells) that
mimics its corresponding in vivo organ, such that it can be used to study aspects of that organ in the tissue culture dish.” However, such a construct is not without problems. Challenges of reproducibility, lack of complexity, and lack of vasculatures and immune cells are preventing this method to be fully and widely adopted to the applications organoids promised to accomplish. 3D printing or the 3D bioprinting method appears to offer solutions in the next generation of organoids and 3D tissue culture.

Speakers:

Stephanie Willerth

Dr. Willerth, a Full Professor in Biomedical Engineering, holds a Canada Research Chair in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Victoria where she has dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Medical Sciences. She also holds an appointment with the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. She recently founded the start-up company – Axolotl Biosciences that sells high quality bioinks for bioprinting human tissue models. She is an active member of the steering committee of the B.C. Regenerative Medicine Initiative and the Stem Cell Network. She also serves as a staff scientist at Creative Destruction Lab. She served as the Acting Director of the Centre for Biomedical Research and the Biomedical Engineering undergraduate program at the University of Victoria from 2018-2021 and as the President of Canadian Biomaterials Society from 2018-2019.

Tania Hübscher

Tania Hübscher is a PhD student in the Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). She holds a Bachelor in Biology from the University of Neuchatel and a Master in Life Sciences from EPFL. She conducted her Master thesis at Stanford University. During that time, she became fascinated by stem cells and their potential and decided to pursue this research as a PhD. In Prof. Lutolf lab, we are mostly working with organoids, and bioengineering approaches towards the next generation of organoid cultures.

Y. Shrike Zhang

Dr. Zhang’s research interests include 3D bioprinting, organ-on-a-chip, biomaterials, regenerative engineering, and bioanalysis. He is an author of >265 peer-reviewed publications with citations of ~20,000 and h-index of 70. His scientific contributions have been recognized by over 40 regional, national and international awards.

Dr. Jenny Chen

Dr. Jenny Chen is trained as a neuroradiologist, founder/CEO of 3DHEALS. Her main interests include next generation education, 3D printing in the healthcare sector, automated biology, artificial intelligence. She is an angel investor who invests in Pitch3D companies.