Orquidea (Orchid) Garcia

As a Johnson & Johnson Research Fellow and Lead for 3D Bioprinting and Tissue Regen Technologies, Orquidea (Orchid) Garcia is the technical lead for 3D bioprinting, and related tissue regen technology development. She is responsible for the evaluation and execution of technical strategies and new technologies integration to develop a new class of next-generation healthcare solutions. Orchid works closely with internal business partners, as well as technology, academia, and government partners to develop the CoE’s bioprinting capabilities.    

Orchid has extensive experience identifying novel technologies through scientific discovery and translating them into patentable, marketable technologies both in industry and academia. Having served as the scientific subject matter expert on numerous initiatives, she brings a keen understanding of world-wide technical, scientific, regulatory and policy issues that face the business. 

Previously, Orchid held various positions at J&J in Clinical Affairs and Regulatory Affairs. She received a Bachelor of Science degree in Biochemistry and Cellular Biology from the University of California San Diego; a Master of Science degree in Microbiology from California State University Los Angeles; and a Ph.D. in Medical Biology from the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine. She is a Fellow of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM). Orchid is based in Chicago, IL. She spoke at the recent 3D Bioprinting for Drug Discovery and Development event.

Jenny: How did you first encounter bioprinting? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?

Dr. Garcia: I was first introduced to bioprinting during my doctoral and postdoctoral training in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.  At that time, bioprinting was a new and emerging technology that was always just out of reach of what I could fund with grant money.  I remember thinking that bioprinting had the potential to address many of the challenges encountered in traditional tissue engineering approaches. 

Jenny: What inspired you to start your career in bio-fabrication?

Dr. Garcia: I continued to watch the development of the technology, on the sidelines, throughout my academic and industry careers.  When Johnson & Johnson announced their intent to invest in developing world-class 3D printing capabilities, including in the field of bioprinting, I couldn’t resist jumping at the opportunity to get involved.   

Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?

Dr. Garcia: The biggest motivations for my work are the patients who we hope will ultimately benefit from bioprinted products and solutions.  At Johnson & Johnson, we are always looking for ways to apply new technologies that deliver groundbreaking innovation that improves patients’ lives.  It’s an honor to be able to develop this technology at J&J and inspiring to know that bioprinting may one day have a transformational impact on patient care.

Jenny: What are the biggest challenges in your current work? What are the potential solutions?

Dr. Garcia: 3D bioprinting is an innovative and disruptive technology, so gaps currently exist in standards for medical/biological additive manufacturing, guidance documents for 3D printed devices and products containing biological components, ‘fit for purpose’ regulatory frameworks for personalized medical devices/products and manufacturing frameworks for these products.  Although these gaps present a challenge in terms of launching a product commercially, health agencies worldwide have begun working on ways to address these hurdles and have begun partnering with clinicians, industry stakeholders and academics to simultaneously develop regulatory frameworks alongside technological advancements so as not to delay the availability of patient access to innovative devices/treatments afforded through bioprinting.

Jenny: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing bio-printing industry? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?

Dr. Garcia: From a technical perspective, the challenges bioprinting are those inherent with any biological system:  there are many different cellular responses that can occur for a myriad of reasons and understanding how cells will ultimately react within or to our engineered constructs will be important to ensure that we are enabling a regenerative response.

From a business perspective, it is important to tap into the top minds around the world to fully explore the potential of bioprinting, and Johnson & Johnson is doing just that.  We have established a collaborative laboratory with AMBER, the Science Foundation-Ireland funded institute at Trinity College Dublin. Our focus is on developing a deeper partnership in bioprinting to translate this important research into future innovation.

Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advice did you hear that they should ignore?

Dr. Garcia: As far as advice, I would encourage other scientists to be fearless.  Believe in your science, and let your data guide you.  Accept the doubt of others as a healthy challenge and a gift, and use that to drive you. Challenges are hurdles that you can overcome, and never forget the impact your science will have on the lives of others.

Related Articles:

Bioprint A Heart: Interview with Fluidform3D CEO Mike Graffeo

The Heart of the Matter: Interview with Dr. Shafkat Anwar, UCSF

A Call to the Heart-A Perspective on the State of 3D Bioprinting of Cardiac Tissue

Cardiac 3D Printing: The Heart of the Matter

Interview: Jon Rowley, Founder & Chief Product Officer, RoosterBio

Cancer: What 3D Printing (Bioprinting) Can do For Oncological Care

The post Believe in Your Science: Dr. Orquidea Garcia, JNJ appeared first on 3DHeals.

Cancer, what a modern-day existential threat to humanity, is a word that triggers a cringe from the most fearless. I don’t need to give you a precise mortality/morbidity number, because chances are high that you have already encountered cancer directly or indirectly if you are reading this article. Over the past decades in the field of oncology, we have made significant progress, from diagnosis, and surgical interventions, to therapeutics. According to a recent report from McKinsey, “In 1970, of those diagnosed with cancer in the United States, approximately half would have been alive five years later. For those diagnosed in 2009, the figure was closer to 70 percent.”   Despite that, cancer is still surpassing heart disease as a leading cause of death in the United States in 2020. [10] The demand for faster and more accurate diagnostics, and less invasive and personalized treatments (precision medicine) are driving researchers to technologies like 3D printing and 3D bioprinting. This guide aims to summarize ongoing developments and progress made using 3D printing and 3D Bioprinting for cancer care. We will periodically update this guide to stay up to date. Please email info@3dheals.com if you want to recommend new technologies or companies for us to be included in future versions of this guide. 

Here is an outline for this guide: 

• Current trends in cancer care.
• What benefits does Three-Dimensional (3D) printing (biologic and nonbiologic) bring to the table for cancer care? 
• How are people using non-biologic 3D printing in cancer care? 
• How are people using bioprinting in cancer care? 
• Which Non-biologic 3D printing companies are focusing on cancer care? 
• Which bioprinting companies are focusing on cancer care? 
• Conclusion
• References

Current Trends in Cancer Care

It would be erroneous to try to apply 3D printing or 3D bioprinting without paying attention to the overall trends in cancer care. While the main therapeutic options in the field of oncology are still surgical resection, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, and hormonal therapy, newer treatment options are becoming more impactful. These include but are not limited to the following [9, 11]: 

• Digital health – This includes telehealth, wearable devices, apps, and other digital tools to allow providers and patients to engage remotely, cutting costs, providing convenience, and preventing complications.
• Precision medicine – Current cancer treatments often come with significant morbidities because they often kill healthy tissues along with cancer cells. There is an increasing consensus that personalized cancer care with improved early diagnosis including genetic testing (i.e. pharmacogenomics), less and more customized chemotherapy, more immunotherapy, and even gene therapy.
•  Competitive landscape – The oncology market is extremely competitive. With more disruptors in the space (gene therapies, immunotherapies, etc), and expiring patents, drug companies are racing to control costs and decrease drug development timelines. According to our recent virtual event on the subject, only 5% of all cancer drugs eventually benefit patients after a long and expensive R&D period, with an average development timeline of 9.5 years. Even after launch, only a small number of these will have sufficiently transformative benefit-to-risk profiles to drive return on investment.
• Market Growth – The field of oncology will continue to expand at a rapid pace due to a large aging population. In the U.S., it is estimated that more than seventy percent of cancer diagnoses with occur among adults over 65 years old. This is a 45% increase from 2010. Oncology costs will rise by 9-12% annually through 2023, with global oncology costs exceeding $240 billion [9,12]. Therefore, cost control is a priority no matter where you live. Even as new and better therapies emerge, pharma companies can expect to face mounting pressure to reduce treatment costs.
• Accelerated Innovation –  According to the McKinsey report, ‘though it took about eight years between the first therapy for HER2-positive patients in 1999 and the next therapy, the gap between the first-to-market PARP inhibitor in 2013 and the next was less than two years.” This is not only manifested in scientific advances but also in an uptick in venture capital investments and acquisition premiums.  

With these trends in mind, let’s see how 3D printing and bioprinting can transform future cancer care.

What benefits does 3D printing (biologic and nonbiologic) bring to the table for cancer care? 

While they are very different, a 3D printed anatomical model for presurgical planning using polymer shares several common concepts with a 3D-bioprinted model for cancer drug development. These features directly stem from several fundamentally new, unique, and powerful characteristics additive manufacturing offers.

1. Digital manufacturing:

Complete control over the manufacturing process, starting from design to the end product. Digitalization enables automation, and automation enables scaling that no existing conventional manufacturers or laboratories can provide.

2. Mass customization:

No two patients are identical, and the call for personalized medicine in oncological care simply cannot be met using conventional manufacturing processes to the degree 3D printing can achieve.

3. Rapid prototyping:

While there is a general trend toward promoting “mass production” using AM technologies, “rapid prototyping” remains to be a dominant reason for adaption in healthcare.

4. Complexity for “free”:

3D Printing and bioprinting offer complexity in end-product simply cannot be found elsewhere in the manufacturing world. Whether a one-off 3D-printed anatomical model for complex life-saving surgery or a uniquely designed complex microfluidic chip, both pose some of the most economic applications using 3D printing.

Additionally, significant overlap exists between non-organic 3D printing and bioprinting:

• Many different 3D printing technologies can be used for both, including extrusion-based 3D printing (e.g. FDM, SLA, inkjet-based, etc.)
• Materials and Bio-ink play a critical role in the final product.

How are people using non-biologic 3D printing in cancer care? 

Many applications using 3D printing for oncological surgical intervention are similar to applications in non-oncological surgeries. Being the “digital twin” of the tumor before the patient undergoes surgery, these applications leverage the visual and haptic advantages of a 3D-printed model and create patient-

Many applications of 3D printing for oncological surgical intervention are similar to applications in non-oncological surgeries. Being the “digital twin” of the tumor before the patient undergoes surgery, these applications leverage the visual and haptic advantages of a 3D-printed patient-specific model. Complimentary devices also include surgical guides for preoperative planning, testing, intraoperative precision cutting, device placements, and postoperative radiation therapy planning devices to achieve improved clinical outcomes. As technology matures, there are more and more published creative uses of this type of 3D printing. For those who are interested in more details on how to implement additive manufacturing from an operational management perspective, we have put together a very in-depth regularly updated guide.

We also have quite a few on-demand videos on 3D printing in hospitals. 

Some of the main applications include [4]:

1. Pre-surgical planning.

With a patient-specific 3D model in hand, the surgeon can more effectively strategize the surgical approach, and even practice on the 3D-printed model, reducing intra-operative decision-making and complications. This is especially important for high-stake, complex procedures, where the tumor involves critical structures, such as important vessels and nerves. It is foreseeable that three-dimensional printing will be more widely incorporated into virtual surgical planning in less complex surgeries as the technologies are more affordable and user-friendly. 

2. Patient and physician communication tool.

A picture is worth a thousand words. A 3D-printed model is worth likely more. The combination of spatial-visual and haptic information conveyed through a 3D-printed model not only helps physician-physician communication, but also physician-patient communication, removing information barriers that often waste time and effort in trying to reach consensus. This is particularly helpful in pediatric cases and uncommon pathologies. The communication benefits were cited in a number of publications but also well-discussed in our webinars focusing on point-of-care 3D printing. [13] 

3. Intra-operative surgical guides.

3D printed patient-specific surgical guides are becoming more and more popular in surgery in general, as it reduces intra-operative decision making, provides consistent surgical outcomes, and reduce operating time. Many ongoing clinical trials currently focus on the immediate and long-term outcomes using these surgical guides. 

4. Patient-specific prosthetics and implants.

Space-filling patient-specific prosthetics and implants are increasingly in demand in post-resection cancer surgery patients. This is, in particular, relevant for breast cancer surgery, reconstructive surgery, and orthopedic surgery in a variety of disfiguring procedures. There are still many technical challenges. These include highly heterogenous cancer types (For example, there are many different types of breast cancers involving different cell types and having different molecular/genetic profiles),  a lack of 3D printing material options, labor intensive and expensive printing process, a general lack of clinical trials outcome data, and invalidated implant mechanical properties.

However, what is encouraging is that there are a number of non-biologic 3D printing implant startups are already tackling cancer surgeries facing millions of patients each year. These include and are not limited to Onkons Surgical (musculoskeletal cancer), Prayasta (breast cancer), Lattice Medical (breast cancer), BellaSeno (breast cancer, chest wall defect, musculoskeletal defects). 

5. Patient-specific radiation oncology.

A main adjuvant treatment in cancer care is radiotherapy, aiming to stop the spread of metastasis because oftentimes, surgery alone cannot effectively remove all the cancer cells. The residual tumor can invade adjacent tissues, but also spread quickly to the rest of the human body via a process called metastasis.  This is an active area of research because radiation comes with many side effects.

Patient-specific 3D-printed simulation models can potentially reduce the side effects of radiation therapy, preserving the function of normal tissue adjacent to the tumor. [6] There are already quite a lot of innovations in creating patient-specific brachytherapy for a variety of cancers, and we have several Expert Corner blogs on this subject:

3D Printing of Customizable Phantoms in Radiation Oncology

3D Printing for Cancer Treatment – Radiation Therapy Liver Phantom

Some of the notable development include 3D Systems announcing VSP® Bolus to optimize radiotherapy targeting in April 2022. 

Quite a few startups are also moving into the space, including 3DLifePrint and Adaptiiv. 

How are people using 3D bioprinting in cancer care? 

Bioprinting is tackling three main aspects of cancer treatment: disease modeling, diagnosis, and drug delivery. Microfluidics, some considered a subcategory of bioprinting, play a growing and instrumental role in cancer management. While not all microfluidics are 3D printed, many latest innovations use 3D printing as an alternative manufacturing method or use 3D printing in conjunction with end applications. Therefore, microfluidics is included in this part of the discussion. Microfluidics currently has a much larger market than bioprinting, and maybe even tissue engineering. For those who are interested, we have a dedicated on-demand course on microfluidics and also an upcoming live event.

Disease modeling.  

In Sun Tzu’s famous “The Art of War”, he wrote “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Effective disease modeling is the key to winning the war against cancer. The creation of a high-fidelity cancer model enables more effective personalized treatment strategies and the discovery of new oncological medicine. In the past, planar (2D) and 3D cell cultures and animal models, have been developed for cancer treatment research. While animal models are often superior to cell cultures, they are expensive in cost and time, and perhaps more importantly, increasingly ethically unaccepted by several major regulatory entities.

It is also important to mention that a major drive toward non-animal disease models including 3D cell culture, bioprinted 3D tissue models, and microfluidics-based technology comes from the governments.

Recent regulatory milestones need your attention

2013: EU bans cosmetic animal testing [14]

After two-decade-long efforts in the EU, in 2013, EU Directive 76/768/EEC (Cosmetics Directive) established “a testing ban i.e. it is prohibited to test a finished cosmetic product and its ingredients on animals in the EU; and a marketing ban i.e. it is prohibited to market a finished cosmetic product or its ingredients in the EU if they are tested on animals.” 

“Between 2007 and 2011 the EU spent €238 million on funding non-animal replacement tests – a testament to its concern about animal welfare, the 3Rs, and the quest to find alternative methods.”

Needless to say, this explains why some of the earliest commercialized bioprinting products focuses on the skin. We have a guide focusing on bioprinting skin for those who are interested. 

2021: EMA implements new measures to minimize animal testing during drug development. [15]

In 2021, European Medicine Agency pushes forward continuous efforts against animal testing in the pharmaceutical industry. “The Agency promotes three principles — replace, reduce and refine; commonly referred to as 3Rs — through EMA’s Innovation Task Force (ITF). This action will facilitate the development and implementation of New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) that are in line with the European Union legislation on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.” Alternative approaches to animal models mentioned included tests based on human and animal cells, organoids, organ-on-chips, and in silico modeling.

2021: The congress passes FDA Modernization Act of 2021. [16]

Introduced in House (04/15/2021), this bill amends the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to allow manufacturers and sponsors of a drug to use alternative testing methods to animal testing to investigate the safety and effectiveness of a drug, and for other purposes. The regulatory landscape is clarifying. 

More arguments against animal testing

Additionally, results from animal models often cannot be translated into human subjects.

This likely explains why 95% of all cancer drugs in development cannot reach the market. [1] Recently, 3D bioprinting-based cancer models using human cells are gaining popularity over traditional 2D and 3D cancer cell cultures made using other tissue engineering techniques. The main reasons are again related to the main principles behind additive manufacturing mentioned at the beginning of the article. The reduced cost and increased complexity in the bio-printed cancer models can be a more cost-effective (and ethical) solution than animal models.

The Big Question: Is Bioprinted 3D Tissue Model Better than Existing Models? 

The answer is Maybe. 

More importantly, will the 3D model behave more like real cancer?

The verdict is out there according to our panel on this subject lately. However, we are likely to see a lot of data on this comparison in the next six to twelve months. So stay tuned for our next update. 

While emerging technologies tell a great story, many disappoint in reality. While grifters always exist in every industry, the majority of the scientists and entrepreneurs are honest and truly believed in what they are working on. However, scientific and technological advancements take both time and luck, and often, it depends on the state of understanding of the disease process. The process may not always be linear, either. Many discoveries started with an observation, then decades of the unraveling of the science behind it, followed by hypothesis, testing, and eventually the creation of useful therapeutics for the patients.

During our recent virtual event focusing on 3D bioprinting cancer,  Dr. Antti Arjonen, Chief Science Officer at Brinter, presented how he is translating our observation and understanding of breast cancer pathogenesis into creating useful bioprinted cancer models. One simple reason why 3D bioprinted cancer models are superior to 2D models can be extracted from the fact that cancer occurs often first in the breast ducts than lobules. Having a disease model that can recreate more accurate cell-cell interaction, cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) interaction, and tumor micro-environment (high pressure, hypoxia) in a consistent high-throughput/low-cost manner will be more useful. 

That said, just like a simple imitation of a bird’s wings cannot allow one to fly, it is only when we understood Bernoulli’s principal and fundamental physics behind aviation, could the Wright brothers invented the first motor-operated airplanes and the giant industry today after a century of evolution. Maybe the bioprinted ear cannot actually hear, but using regenerative medicine to replace or repair our body parts that no longer work is what the world wants. 

Some key developments in bio-printed cancer models include the following [1-3]:

Cancer Disease Model:

1. Tumor microenvironment simulation.

It’s been long recognized that the proliferation of cancer depends not just on cancerous cells alone, but on interactions between cancer cells and many other players in the “microenvironment”, which is a combination of the extracellular matrix, immune cells, vascular cells, chemical cues (growth factors and cytokines), and biophysical cues (interstitial pressure and matrix mechanics), and more. [1,3] 3D Bioprinting can more precisely. create a scaffold of this microenvironment. While most bioprinted cancer models are created using the extrusion-based technique, which typically is of lower resolution, higher resolution structures using two-photon laser bioprinting technology can be as high as less than 500 nanometers according to CEO of VoxCell BioInnovation Karolina Valente. Even for more conventional extrusion-based bioprinting , innovations are improving the technology. For example, very recently, Raphael Lichtnecker from Puredyne ViscoTec presented a new tool using a progressive cavity pump for better-controlled extrusion type bioprinting. 

2. Tumor angiogenesis.  

Both sacrificial and direct bioprinting can create cancer models with vascularization. [1] A 3D printed microfluidic chip, which is a small chip with complex channels and valves, can be produced to mimic complex tumor vascularization. [3,5] To date, there has been no effective anti-metastasis medication. Understanding the disease process will be a key step. Bio-printed models have been shown to illuminate the process of breast cancer. [1]

During our recent virtual event focusing on cancer, Dr. Karolina Valente from VoxCell has showcased ways her company is tackling cancer vascularization challenge from several angles, using innovative software simulation, bioinks, and laser based printing technology. 

3. Metastasis model.

To date, there has been no effective anti-metastasis medication. Understanding the disease process will be a key step. Bio-printed models have been shown to illuminate the process of breast cancer. [1]

Drug discovery.

Effective disease modeling results in a better understanding of cancer pathogenesis, which results in the discovery of new anti-cancer drugs. Some experts have indicated that bioprinted 3D tumor models are more effective in modeling treatment response than 2D models. [2] While the verdict is still out there, a drug discovery platform that is highly reproducible, more accurate, and more capable of automation will likely generate better outcomes than the incumbent process. This will not only translate into more money saved but more importantly, more new and effective therapeutics for an evolving world. 

Drug screening for patient-specific care.

Parallel to drug discovery is drug screening for drug resistance and toxicity, often using patient-derived cancer cells. [2] Since cancer drugs are often toxic, patient-specific combinations and dosages of cancer treatments will maximize effectiveness while minimizing side effects. Given the current trends in oncological treatments stated earlier, a patient specific cancer model will be congruent with the overarching reference of pharmacogenetic approach in future cancer care.   

Diagnosis and Drug Delivery. [5,7,8]

Also, parallel to the development of bioprinting technologies is the advancement of manufacturing microfluidic chips, often called “organ-on-a-chip”, or “lab-on-a-chip”. Compared to traditional manufacturing techniques, bioprinting offers a cheaper solution with all the added value of 3D printing as described above. [5]

Diagnostic tool.

Microfluidic chips acting as a point-of-care diagnostic tool are not new, in fact, were made as the core technology in the infamous biotechnology startup Theranos. As a diagnostic tool, the microfluid chip offers a solution that requires less sample volume, faster turnaround time, and potentially lower test costs. Leveraging nanotechnologies/nanomedicine. There is a growing ecosystem surrounding this application, focusing on diagnosing cancer cells from early metastasis to sepsis. [7,8]

Drug delivery system.  

In the author’s opinion, there is no accident around any major breakthrough or discovery in medicine. With the concurrent advancements in immunology, genetics, nanotechnologies, and nanomedicine, it is only a matter of time before a more personalized targeted drug delivery system will appear. In fact, researchers are already proposing targeted treatment using microfluidic chips designed to destroy metastatic tumor cells. [7]

Which Non-biologic 3D printing companies are focusing on cancer care? 

Like any emerging technology, it is often a trial and error process in finding the best market product fit. We actively curate a list of companies, private and public, that use 3D printing as a core technology in their products and services. You can find the latest companies using our Company Directory, under the search term “cancer”.  Here is an infographic we recently shared including these companies, excluding bioprinting companies (see the following section): 

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Which bioprinting companies are focusing on cancer care? 

You can find the latest companies using our Company Directory, under the search term “cancer”. Here is an infographic we recently shared including bioprinting companies and microfluidics companies that use 3D printing as a core technology.

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A post shared by 💡Healthcare 3D Printing💡 (@3dheals)

Conclusion:

Like many other emerging technologies, 3D printing is a powerful tool that can transform healthcare and provide solutions that we could not imagine yesterday. It is important to understand the fundamental advantages of the technology to best utilize them in solving problems, and it is also important to always keep an open mind to learn and leverage technological advancements from adjacent fields. One step at a time, the battle against cancer will be won with these exciting technological advancements.

References:

1. Tingting Liu, Clement Delavaux, Yu Shrike Zhang, 3D bioprinting for oncology applications, J. 3D Print.Med. (2019) 3(2), 55–58
2. Aishwarya Satpathy, Pallab Datta, Yang Wu, Bugra Ayan, Ertugrul Bayram & Ibrahim T. Ozbolat (2018). Developments with 3D bioprinting for novel drug discovery, Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery, 13:12, 1115-1129,DOI: 10.1080/17460441.2018.1542427
3. Yu Shrike Zhang, Margaux Duchamp, Rahmi Oklu, Leif W. Ellisen, Robert Langer, and Ali Khademhosseini. Bioprinting the Cancer Microenvironment. ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering 2016 2 (10), 1710-1721. DOI: 10.1021/acsbiomaterials.6b00246
4. Georgia Makin, The current landscape of 3D printing in oncological surgical interventions Future Oncol. (2019) 15(26), 2999–3002
5.  Reza Amin et al. 3D-printed microfluidic devices. 2016 Biofabrication 8 022001
6. 3D Printing for Cancer Treatment – Radiation Therapy Liver Phantom
7. Alena Gribko, et al.  Is small smarter? Nanomaterial-based detection and elimination of circulating tumor cells: current knowledge and perspectives. Int J Nanomedicine. 2019; 14: 4187–4209.
8. The Growing Role of Microfluidics in Point-of-Care Diagnostics
9. Emerging Oncology Trends: 2021 And Beyond
10. Cancer to surpass heart disease as leading cause of death in US by 2020
11. Delivering innovation: 2020 oncology market outlook
12. Age and Cancer Risk
13. The use of 3D-printed models in patient communication: a scoping review

Want to write a piece for 3DHEALS Expert Corner? Email us: info@3dheals.com

About The Author:

Jenny Chen, MD, is currently the Founder and CEO of 3DHEALS, a company focusing on education and investing in the space of bioprinting, regenerative medicine, healthcare applications using 3D printing. She is trained as a neuroradiologist. With a focus on health technology, Dr. Chen also serves as a startup Mentor to IndieBio EU and French Tech Hub, tech accelerators that help IT and life science companies launch and expand their product offerings, identify customers, and manage operations. Her interests lie in the applications of emerging technologies (especially in the field of 3D printing and bioprinting), automated biology, and has a vision of a decentralized and personalized healthcare delivery system for our near future.

Related Links:

3D Bioprinting Cancer (On-Demand, 5/5/22)

Bioprinting Vasculatures (On-Demand, 3/24/22)

3D Printing for Cancer Treatment – Radiation Therapy Liver Phantom

Manufacturing of Functional Tissues In Vitro Using Bioprinting and Bioreactors

Vahid Serpooshan: Repairing Heart with Tissue Engineering

Enabling Futuristic Bioelectronics With Bioprinting: Beyond the Obvious

3D Printing for the Human Organ Shortage: Putting Bio back into Bioprinting

The post Guide: 3D Printing For Cancer Care appeared first on 3DHeals.

Albert Folch‘s lab works at the interface between 3D-printing, microfluidics and cancer. He received both his BSc (1989) and PhD (1994) in Physics from the University of Barcelona (UB), Spain, in 1989. During his Ph.D. he was a visiting scientist from 1990–91 at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab working on AFM under Dr. Miquel Salmeron. From 1994–1996, he was a postdoc at MIT developing MEMS under Martin Schmidt (EECS) and Mark Wrighton (Chemistry). In 1997, he joined Mehmet Toner’s lab as a postdoc at Harvard-MGH to apply soft lithography to tissue engineering. He has been at Seattle’s UW BioE since June 2000, where he is now a full Professor, accumulating over 11,000 citations. In 20 years, he has supervised 18 postdocs (17% of whom have reached faculty rank), 12 Ph.D. students (25% faculty rank), 15 M.S. students, and >40 undergraduates. In 2001 he received an NSF Career Award, in 2006 a NASA Space Act Award, and in 2014 he was elected to the AIMBE College of Fellows (Class of 2015). He has served on the Advisory Board of Lab on a Chip between 2006-2017 and on the Editorial Board of Micromachines since 2019. He is the sole author of 5 books, including “Introduction to BioMEMS” (2012, Taylor&Francis), a textbook adopted by ~100 departments in 18 countries, and “Hidden in Plain Sight: The History, Science, and Engineering of Microfluidic Technology” (MIT Press, to appear in April 2022). Since 2007, the lab runs a celebrated outreach art program called BAIT (Bringing Art Into Technology), which has produced seven exhibits, a popular resource gallery of >2,000 free images related to microfluidics and microfabrication, and a YouTube channel that plays microfluidic videos with music which accumulates ~157,000 visits since 2009.

Professor will be speaking during our upcoming 3D Printing Microfabrication Event. 

Jenny: When was the first encounter you had with 3D printing? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?

Albert: A student showed me a brochure from Protolabs (Fineline Prototyping at that moment) that had a picture of a 3D-printed microfluidic device in it. I did not know that 3D-printers were capable of that resolution! It opened my eyes.

Jenny: What inspired you to start your journey in 3D printing (bio-fabrication/bio-printing)?

Albert: The convenience (digital design+automated fabrication) and low cost. As soon as we tried it, we never went back to molding!

Jenny: Who inspired you the most along this journey in 3D printing (bio-printing/bio-fabrication)?  

Albert: My student Anthony Au, who did very creative designs for microfluidics and literally changed the way we do microfluidics in the lab.

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Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?

Albert: I like the feeling of learning new things every day and being on the edge of knowledge.

Jenny: What is/are the biggest obstacle(s) in your line of work? If you have conquered them, what were your solutions?

Albert: My lab has two sides, 3D printing (technology) development and cancer assays.

On the technology side, the biggest obstacle right now are the machines: the highest-resolution ones for microfluidics (Dilase3D, 5 micron resolution over a 10 cm x 10 cm area) are too expensive (~$200,000) to be widespread, although we have one here at UW, and can only print in one material at a time. We wish they were down to $10,000 and could print in several materials.

On the cancer side, given that we have learned that cancer is a disease that evolves differently in every individual, we need personalized treatments. We need assays that detect cancer early (for prevention) and treatments that stop cancer when it has spread (metastasis). Right now there are very few treatments for metastatic disease, so I think we should try new strategies because the old tenet that metastasis results from an accumulation of random mutations is not credible.

Jenny: What do you think is (are) the biggest challenge(s) in 3D Printing/bio-printing? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?

Albert: Materials and resolution.

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Jenny: If you are granted three wishes by a higher being, what would they be?

Albert: Infinite wisdom and absolute happiness – don’t need a third one!

Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advice you heard should they ignore?

Albert: Listen to their own drive! And likewise, do not listen to advice from older people who have lived different lives, live your own passion for learning and you will be the best at what you love to do, or at the very least you will be happy doing it.

Jenny: If you could have a giant billboard to promote a message to millions and even billions of people in our community (i.e. healthcare 3D printing and bio-fabrication), what message would that be?

Albert: The giant billboards exist (LinkedIn/Facebook/YouTube) but I can’t think of anything that would be of interest to so many people at a time unless we can announce that we have cured cancer or something equally important.

Jenny: What were/was the best investment you made in 3D printing/bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Albert: A used Ilios printer I bought from a guy down in Portland and with which we started all our biocompatible resin work – great open-source printer!

Jenny: What were/was the worst investment you made in 3D printing/bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Albert: I forgot 🙂

Jenny: What was/is the biggest risk you took in your career?

Albert: Leaving Barcelona, my hometown

Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time? What are you passionate about outside of your work/3d printing?

Albert: Soccer.

Photo credit: Folch Lab

Jenny: What is your favorite quote? Why?

Albert:  I have 3 quotes on top of my desk, and they all emphasize the same motto that there is more to Science than simply accumulating knowledge:

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” (Albert Einstein)

“Research is to see what everyone has seen and think what nobody has thought” (Albert Szent-György)

“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why – I dream of things that never were, and ask: why not?” (Robert Kennedy)

Jenny: What does the word “3DHEALS” mean to you? =) 

Albert: “3D-Printing can help healthcare”

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The post Prof. Albert Folch- Beautiful Microfluidics appeared first on 3DHeals.

Jordan Miller is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University and Co-Founder of Volumetric, a Houston-based startup focused on next-generation biomaterials and biofabrication technologies. Miller received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from MIT in 2003 and earned his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from Rice University in 2008. His primary interests combine synthetic chemistry, 3D printing, microfabrication, and molecular imaging to direct cultured human cells to form more complex organizations of living vessels and tissues for research in regenerative medicine. Precisely engineered in vitro systems at the molecular, micro- and meso-scale are well suited to decouple the relationship between tissue architecture and cell function. These systems are now permitting comprehensive closed-loop design and optimization of large-scale engineered tissues through refinement with computer models of mass transport and assessment of their therapeutic potential in vivo. Dr. Miller will be speaking at the upcoming 3DHEALS2020.

Jenny: What inspired you to start your career in bio-fabrication?

Dr. Miller: My first love in school was Biology, and I worked in all kinds of research labs to try to figure out what I wanted to focus on — ophthalmology research at Cedars-Sinai, fluid dynamics of fish swimming at MIT, and viral pathogenesis at Harvard Medical School. As an undergrad at MIT, I saw an intriguing talk by Professor Ioannis Yannas on how he was able to take collagen from cow skin and process it into a skin substitute for human patients with major burns over their body. The natural response to large area skin burns is the formation of scar (if you are lucky enough to survive the injury and can get enough graft material).

Professor Yannas’ work showed that his skin substitute could not only provide a near-limitless supply of skin substitute for human patients, but his engineered collagens completely prevented scar formation to dramatically improve the lives of burn victims. I was completely captivated; I approached him after the talk and asked if I could join his lab. I worked with him for two years in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and completed a small undergraduate thesis project on some of the pathophysiologies of scar tissue formation in response to injury. I was completely hooked on this idea of biofabrication — making novel materials and structures in the lab that can seamlessly integrate with the body and replace damaged tissues simply by encouraging resident cells to take a regenerative, rather than a reactive, response to the injury at hand. I’ve remained enamored with this idea ever since, and have built my career on this pursuit.

Jenny: How did you first encounter bioprinting? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?

Dr. Miller:

During my Bioengineering Ph.D. at Rice University, I learned about hydrogels — water-swollen polymer networks that closely matched the mechanics and water content of human tissue. The fact that they can be photopolymerized — converted from liquid to solid simply by shining the right color of light at the right intensity — I knew I wanted to study that phenomenon for my doctoral work. Our field was recognizing that the adage of “genotype leads to phenotype” — a cell’s genetic makeup leads to the cell’s behavior — is not a constant, but that cells are continuously sampling their surrounding environment or “microenvironment” and responding based on what they are able to sense. So, using my experience with confocal microscopy, we were the first group to utilize multiphoton polymerization to structure and pattern hydrogels containing living cells. It was an extremely powerful and high-precision technique, but I realized it wouldn’t have the fabrication throughput to build entire human organ replacements. So, I began looking to develop simpler techniques that were radically lower in cost, much higher in throughput and could work within the short timescales needed to keep human cells alive.

Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?

Dr. Miller: The fact that we have a national organ donation waitlist whose prospects continue to worsen has been a major motivator for my life. When I was 16 and went to get my driver’s license in California, I had to answer the question “do you wish to register to be an organ and tissue donor?” This one question changed my entire outlook. The realization that more than 100,000 sick people are waiting, often for someone else to die, so that they can receive an organ donation to live was shocking and transformative to my young mind. I described this in more detail in a TEDx talk in 2012, and it remains a constant drive in my life.

A more recent review paper highlights that if a ready supply of replacement organs was available, it could not only clear the 100,000 people on the organ donation waitlist, but millions of people worldwide that are not currently sick enough or able to qualify to be on that list, yet could medically benefit from an organ transplant, could be treated. The technologies we are developing have a real potential to extend human life expectancy worldwide.

Jenny: What are the biggest challenges in your current work? What are the potential solutions?

Dr. Miller: I laid out many of the biggest challenges in a recent open-access perspective article, and they still remain. One of the biggest challenges we have been focusing on is how to make a complete blood vessel network to keep millions, and eventually billions, of human cells alive. It’s akin to the challenge of designing a city for people to live in: we must architect discrete regions where the residents can live, but we also must build the fluid conduits — roadways for cities and blood vessels for living human tissue — that can be used to deliver nutrients and remove waste. We have invented advanced 3D printing approaches to address this challenge and are now able to make large scale tissue constructs for the first time.

Jenny: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the bio-printing industry? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?

Dr. Miller: 3D printing of plastics is already having a tremendous impact on the medical space — everything from custom braces for broken bones, prosthetic devices, medical implants, and anatomical models to help with surgical planning.

For Bioprinting, which is more in its infancy, the challenges are finding the right way to bring the technology to market given that human clinical trials are probably still at least 5-10 years away. No one is doing large animal studies with whole organ bioprinting yet, because that large yet intricate structure simply cannot be built just yet. However, I believe the technology we and others are developing are now at the maturity where most of the research is done. We are more at the development stage, pushing current technologies to larger tissue volumes, with higher speed, and higher precision than was possible just 5 years ago.

We have to find the right cell sources that can be seeded into these tissue constructs or entrapped directly, but a lot of people working with iPS cells are doing just that. Finally, the prospect of building 3D printed tissues with human cells has a unique opportunity to engage with regulatory bodies such as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that will ultimately oversee and ensure the safety of human recipients.

Jenny: If you are granted three wishes by a higher being, what would they be? 

Dr. Miller:

An end to disease and suffering. Achieving the full potential of each individual, and indeed all of humanity is held back by biological and social issues that if obviated would bring about a dramatic acceleration of our collective progress. Volumetric’s technology is most directly applicable to this goal.

Plentiful and low-cost of clean energy. Access to energy will further underlie humanity’s access to education, healthcare, and quality of life. And clean energy may provide for such progress without a heavy toll on the worldwide ecosystem.

Interplanetary travel for humans. Exciting progress is being worked on in this space right now!

Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advice did you hear that they should ignore?

Dr. Miller: I often share with trainees the wisdom of Professor Bob Langer: the single most important subjects to study are the fundamentals of your chosen major. If you become deeply specialized too early, it not only limits your future career options, it also can limit your ability to think critically and solve problems creatively or efficiently. For these reasons, I believe that often complained-about “breadth” classes are just as important as “depth” classes in college, as well as at later stages of education like graduate school. Even if you are a senior executive in a highly specialized field, it’s still important to keep up to date on what’s happening in other fields because their approach to problem-solving may help you break through your own perceived roadblocks.

Jenny: If you could have a giant billboard to promote a message to millions and even billions of people in our community (i.e. 3DHEALS community), what message would that be?

Dr. Miller: Register to become an organ donor today. 3D bioprinted organ replacements are still 5-10 years away from a first-in-human safety study, and there are more than 100,000 people in need right now. Checking one little box can positively impact the lives of up to eight other people in need.

Jenny: What were/was the best investment you made in 3D printing/bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Dr. Miller: Diving into the RepRap project back in 2009 was my single best investment of time and money. I learned all about the power of open-source hardware and software, and I engaged with a worldwide community of thinkers and tinkerers who were able to help us progress our work on 3D bioprinting. We continue to be actively engaged with the worldwide open-source community, and this ethos is even permeating back into basic Science with the so-called “Open-Science” movement. The term “Open-Science” should be redundant… Science is supposed to be open! It’s very exciting to see the scientific community embracing this area and making their data available for others to review.

Jenny: What were/was the worst investment you made in 3D bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Dr. Miller: We have generally steered away from what I would consider poor investments in this space – we buy open technology platforms, not appliances. The field is way too new for closed systems to provide the fuel we need to progress the field. Volumetric is listening to user feedback, and we have open-sourced our software platform to help provide for the future of this amazing field.

Jenny: What was/is the biggest risk you took in your career?

Dr. Miller: Moving from Biology to Bioengineering was a big risk for me at the time, not many people make that jump successfully. But I believed in myself and followed my interests and passions, and I remain captivated each and every day by the power of applying engineering principles to solving some of the biggest challenges in Biology and Medicine today.

Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time? What are you passionate about outside of your work/3d printing?

Dr. Miller: 3D printing! Designing and visualizing new blood vessel structures is actually a hobby of mine, and 3D rendering and animation with the open-source program Blender have helped us to communicate our work to a much larger audience. I also enjoy the outdoors — hiking, swimming, exploring so much of what Nature has to offer.

Jenny: What is your favorite quote? Why?

Dr. Miller: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it” — Alan Kay. This quote says to me that there’s no point in sitting back in an armchair and trying to be a prognosticator. It’s much more effective to actually work at the cutting edge of technology and become a driver for the future of humanity through personal effort and innovation. Teams working together towards a shared vision can do this even more effectively. I’ve been lucky enough to participate in several widely regarded innovations in my career thus far, and it’s been extremely gratifying to see our hard work extrapolated into new futures that couldn’t be imagined before, but now we and others believe are within our grasp.

Jenny: What does the word “3DHEALS” mean to you?  =)

Dr. Miller: The human body contains the most complicated structures in the known universe. These structures, such as the intricate three-dimensional blood vessel networks of the body, critically underlie human physiology. I see 3DHEALS as a summary that the best way to heal the human body is to better understand this 3D architecture and replicate it in a laboratory and, eventually, a clinical setting. If we can make replacement organs for people, made from their own cells, we can treat literally millions of people worldwide and extend overall human life expectancy. 3DHEALS will move the current medical paradigm of “one size fits all” to a highly personalized experience of precision medicine where “one size fits one”.

Related Articles:

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Bioprint A Heart: Interview with Fluidform3D CEO Mike Graffeo

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A Call to the Heart-A Perspective on the State of 3D Bioprinting of Cardiac Tissue

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The post Engineering Vasculatures: Interview w/ Dr. Jordan Miller appeared first on 3DHeals.

Want to write a piece for 3DHEALS Expert Corner? Email us: info@3dheals.com

“Bioprinting” is a well-known word now, thanks to burgeoning research papers and blogs on the theme. 3D bioprinting has been at the center point of activity and news hub, all thanks to the demonstrated potential. As more and more researchers join the bioprinting community, the promise that it brings to the table seems more realistic. When I started my research in this field five years back, I was amazed at the possibilities that bioprinting could bring to healthcare, biomedical and regenerative medicine. However, being trained as an electronics engineer, I saw something beyond the obvious. Could bioprinting help in combining two distinct fields of biology and electronics to create new avenues for healthcare? 

Bioelectronics is the area, which deals with interfacing electrical devices and circuits with biological materials and species. Pacemakers, artificial prosthetics, and implantable devices belong to this class that has been around for some time. However, most of the present day bioelectronics devices use rigid electronic components, which are a mismatch for soft human tissues. This incompatibility causes issues in the long run, for example, tissues scarring and infections. The vision has been to replace the rigid electronics with flexible and if possible soft electronics. Being an electronic engineer, I saw a huge potential where bioprinting can be put to use to achieve this target. 

I have been making small research efforts in this domain, where bioprinting is used to put down conformal electronics on biomaterials loaded with cells. The drop-on-demand bioprinting technique of microvalve is well-suited for printing low viscosity electronic conducting inks and hydrogels. This paves the way to fabricate external bioelectronic and even implantable devices that have Young’s modulus close to human tissues. The central idea is to encapsulate electronic between biomaterials that will support cell growth. Embedding electronics with biomaterials requires added functionality of biocompatibility, stability in wet environment and flexibility. Our paper “A novel 3D bioprinted flexible and biocompatible hydrogel bioelectronic platform” highlighted that bioprinting can achieve a 3D platform by printing successive layers of biomaterials and electronics. Bioprinting gives the freedom to use different nozzle sizes and control the pressure depending on the viscosity of the inks. This makes it possible to print low viscosity nanoparticle inks for electrical circuits in between layers of high viscosity biomaterials. 

Thus bioprinting functions as a novel tool for design innovation. One can, hence, see the potential of this technology other than in tissue engineering and organ fabrication. Bioprinting can well be a tool to make a new type of healthcare devices. A field that once was though a thing of future is quickly becoming reality, thanks to bioprinting. 

About the author

Shweta Agarwala is Assistant professor at Department of Engineering, Aarhus University (Denmark). Dr. Agarwala graduated in electronics engineering from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore and obtained her Ph.D. in the same field from the National University of Singapore. Her research is directed towards printed electronics for flexible devices and bioelectronics. She is pioneering new routes to put electronics on unconventional surfaces to enable future generation healthcare. 

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The post Enabling Futuristic Bioelectronics With Bioprinting: Beyond the Obvious appeared first on 3DHeals.

On the early morning of 5/31/2019, we had our first successful online Pitch3D event. This event is set to be recurrent each month, aiming to create an opportunity for early-stage startups in the realm of healthcare 3D printing, bioprinting, and advanced materials to have first meetings with a curated panel institutional investors. The presentations are meant to be short (10 minutes max.) but aim to get to the bottom line quickly to stage a second 1:1 meeting that would be more in depth and longer with interested investors. The online format also avoids the opportunity cost of the investor-startup meeting due to time and geographic barriers. To pitch in our future sessions, the application is here. To be included in our investor mailing list, you must be qualified institutional investors, please email us directly: info@3dheals.com.

Our live Pitch3D session will occur concurrently with 3DHEALS event globally. Next live Pitch3D will be in Boston on July 18th, 2019. The application is here.

Presenting Startups Summary:

8:00-8:15 AM Deep Health (Isreal)
Deep Health uses advanced AI tools to change the way surgery is planned and done. We are currently concentrating on Spine surgeries due to the complexity of the procedure. 3D Scanning. Software.

8:15-8:30 AM Kumovis (Munich, Germany)

KUMOVIS develops 3D-printing systems for medical applications. Our system is designed to manufacture a high variety of medical products starting from prototyping up to personalized human implants. h

8:30-8:45 AM PrinterPrezz (Fremont, USA)

PrinterPrezz brings together an operating room and advanced
manufacturing expertise under one roof.

8:45- 9:00 AM Fluidform (Boston, USA)

Fluidform 3D printing builds the additive manufacturing platform for 3D printing silicone, 3D bioprinting, and more.

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The post Pitch3D May 2019: Deep Health; Kumovis; PrinterPrezz; Fluidform appeared first on 3DHeals.

Want to write a piece for 3DHEALS Expert Corner? Email us: info@3dheals.com

Neurological diseases and disorders affect a significant percentage of people and this number will continue to increase as the population ages. For many diseases, like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, no true long-term cure exists as current treatments only mitigate the symptoms of these devastating diseases. One of the major obstacles to developing effective treatments is that our current tools for screening potential drugs lack the ability to accurately predict whether a new drug will be both effective as well as non-toxic. Currently, the tools used for predicting the effects of potential drug targets include animal models and cadaveric human tissues. Animal models can be inaccurate with regards to predicting the toxicity and efficacy of drugs while human tissue samples tend to be limited in availability. Our group takes a different strategy where we use 3D bioprinting to generate neural tissue from pluripotent stem cells. Pluripotent stem cells possess two unique and defining properties. The first property is pluripotency which means they can become any cell type found in the body. These cells can also replicate to generate more stem cells, which is their second defining property. One way to produce pluripotent stem cells requires the reprogramming of adult cells back into stem cell-like state. These cells are called induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) and they can be derived from patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders. These iPSC lines can then be differentiated into tissues similar to those found the nervous system while replicating the features of these diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease [1].

This combination of 3D printing with patient-derived iPSCs has the potential to generate models of neurological diseases in a dish for more accurate screening of potential drug targets. In my research group, we use Aspect Biosystem’s novel RX1 printer to generate our neural tissues as it is both quick and reproducible while being gentle on stem cells during the printing process [2]. It also enables us to print complex structures by positioning both cells and drug releasing microspheres in the appropriate places within our tissues. Our group has published a set of two papers showing that we can print neural tissues derived from human iPSCs while maintaining high levels of cell viability [3, 4]. These tissues can be cultured for extended periods of time (> 40 days) and they express mature neuronal markers. Similar proof of concept work has been done by Dr. Michael McAlpine’s group at the University of Minnesota where they used bioprinting to generate complex co-culture structures from stem cells that resemble the tissue found in the spinal cord [5].

In addition to generating personalized neural tissues for drug screening applications, pluripotent stem cells can also be directed to form structures that mimic the blood-brain barrier, which protects the central nervous system by limiting what materials can be transported into these tissues. Often getting drugs across the blood-brain barrier serves as a limiting step for potential therapeutics for treating neurodegenerative diseases and disorders.  As such, it is imperative to be able to model this structure in a dish when testing potential treatments. The Lippman group at Vanderbilt University recently reviewed the current progress related to generating such in vitro models [6]. Also, the Wellington group at the University of British Columbia validated a complex tissue-engineered model of the blood-brain barrier that could potentially be translated for bioprinting to increase throughput for drug screening applications [7].  Overall, the field of 3D bioprinting in combination with iPSC technology offers huge potential for developing personalized medicine approaches to identifying promising drug targets for treating neurological diseases and disorders.

References:

1. Willerth, S.M. Bioprinting neural tissues using stem cells as a tool for screening drug targets for Alzheimer’s disease. Journal of 3D Printing in Medicine. 2018. 2(4). p. 163-165.

3. Abelseth, E., Abelseth, L., de la Vega, L., Beyer, S., Wadsworth, S., and Willerth, S.M. 3D printing of neural tissues derived from human induced pluripotent stem cells using a fibrin-based bioink. ACS Biomaterials Science and Engineering. 2019. (5) p. 234-243.

4. de la Vega, L., Rosas Gomez, D., Abelseth, E., Abelseth, L., Alisson da Silva, V. and Willerth, S.M. 3D bioprinting human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived neural tissues using a novel Lab-on-a-Printer technology. Applied Science. 2018. 8(2414).  p. 1-13.

5. Joung, D., Truong, V., Neitzke, C.C., Guo, S., Walsh, P.J., Monat, J.R., Meng. M.F.  Park, S.H., Dutton, J.R., Parr, A.M. and McAlpine, M.C. 3D Printed Stem‐Cell Derived Neural Progenitors Generate Spinal Cord Scaffolds. Advanced Functional Materials. 2018. 28 (1801850). p. 1-10.

6. Bosworth, A.M., Faley, S.L., Bellan, L.M., and Lippmann, E.S. Modeling Neurovascular Disorders and Therapeutic Outcomes with Human-Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells. Frontiers in Biotechnology and Bioengineering. 2018. 5(87). p. 1-11.

7. Robert, J., Button, E.B., Yuen, B., Gilmour, M., Kang, K., Bahrabadi, A., Stukas, S., Zhao, W., Kulic, I., and Wellington, C.L. Clearance of beta-amyloid is facilitated by apolipoprotein E and circulating high-density lipoproteins in bioengineered human vessels. eLife. 2017. 10 (6). pii: e29595

About the author:

Dr. Willerth 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 as an Associate Professor. She serves as the Acting Director for the Centre for Biomedical Research at the University of Victoria and on the steering committee of the B.C. Regenerative Medicine Initiative. She also served as the President of the Canadian Biomaterials Society from 2017-2018. Her honors include being named the 2018 REACH award winner for Excellence in Undergraduate Research-inspired Teaching, a Woman of Innovation in 2017, one of the 2015 Young Innovators in Cellular and Biological Engineering and a “Star in Global Health” by Grand Challenges Canada in 2014.  She spent Fall of 2016 on sabbatical at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery supported by the International Collaboration on Repair Discoveries International Travel Award where she wrote her book “Engineering neural tissue using stem cells” published by Academic Press. She completed her postdoctoral work at the University of California-Berkeley after receiving her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Washington University. Her undergraduate degrees were in Biology and Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

You may also want to read:

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How Far Ahead: A Look Back at 2018 in the World of Bioprinting

The post 3D Bioprinting Personalized Brain Tissues appeared first on 3DHeals.

Jan Jensen, Ph.D., CEO/CSO, Founder of Trailhead Biosystems is the Lead Inventor of Trailhead Technology and has 20 years as a molecular developmental biologist. He is the Eddie J. Brandon Endowed chair of Diabetes Research at the Cleveland Clinic. He obtained his Ph.D. from U. Copenhagen in 1998 and has been faculty at US institutions since 2001. Jan has published more than 50 peer-reviewed papers and is now engaged with multiple research projects and consortia covering neural, renal, pancreatic areas, as well as cancer and immunotherapy. The technology of Trailhead Biosystems is the high dimensional design of experiments, which rests on computerized designs and robotic executions. Jan’s vision is to see systems biology become adopted and he aspires to industrialize the manufacture of specialized human cells for regenerative medicine. 

Jenny: When was the first encounter you had with 3D printing? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?

Jensen: I am exposed to 3D printing mainly because we make a lot of specialized human cells. Kidney, pancreas, neural, and many others. We developed a method of high dimensional testing to understand which combinatorial inputs mammalian cells need to be robustly differentiated. As we make these cells, we need to understand how to build tissues from them. It was inevitable that we got into 3D printing.

Jenny: What inspired you to start your journey in 3D printing?

Jensen: I was not interested in 3D printing per se, but more interested in making the best cellular ‘Ink’. Impure cell populations will not print well, the tissues will be contaminated, and the function will be poor. I always have focused on ‘cell differentiation’ as the point of my career, and therefore I became Denmark’s perhaps first molecular developmental biologist. Now, after almost 20 years in the USA as a faculty, and 5 as an entrepreneur and founder of Trailhead Biosystems, it is fascinating to see the advances in the field of regenerative medicine. I think Trailhead Biosystems has an important role to play, and I seek to build the company to broadly impact this new industry.

Jenny: Who inspired you the most along this journey?

Jensen: The best developmental biologists were my heroes. The mammalian embryo was, and is, my guide. And the hunger for understanding how organisms form, the force.

Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?

Jensen: The urgent need for medical products that are not drugs. The patients that are desperate for cures. We can only treat a few conditions with drugs. Most others, we need more advanced products, and for many, such products have to be living human cells and tissues.

Jenny: What is/ are the biggest obstacle(s) in your line of work? If you have conquered them, what were your solutions?

Jensen: Perhaps lack of risk-taking. A lot of poor results have been published and reported in regenerative medicine. Poor cells are often to blame. And investors also don’t like that there is an arduous, slow, and costly regulatory path for a product. This eliminates a lot of activities. Only the biggest players are able to get involved, and unfortunately – these players are drug manufacturers so their take up of regenerative medicine industry is slow. We need to convince the public, and investors, that we will dramatically change society and future medicine, and that fantastic opportunities is within our field. If we can change the pharma industry along that way, not bad.

Jenny: What do you think is (are) the biggest challenge(s) in bio-printing? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?

Jensen: There are technical limitations to the process, mainly on resolution and printing speed. We have to have high resolution for most tissue printing needs, and we need fantastic speed/capacity to scale this into production. Most printers today are not built with the scaling in mind.

Jenny: If you are granted three wishes by a higher being, what would they be?

Jensen: One, that we as humans look less upon ourselves as a unique species – because we do tremendous damage to the ecosystem that created us by putting ourselves first all the time. We should be more humble. Two, to see the stars and the wonders of the Universe and to understand why we are here, and the purpose of it all. But I am human too. My third wish would be for a long, rewarding, and happy life for those that I Love.

Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advices you heard should they ignore?

Jensen: Pick what really excites you, and go for it. It is your life, your responsibility. No one else’s, and their experiences are old, anyway. Enter the space between the disciplines. Master one discipline, Master another, and the jump to the space right in between. There you are alone, and you can do amazing things.

Jenny: If you could have a giant billboard to promote a message to millions and even billions of people in our community (i.e. healthcare 3D printing and bio-fabrication), what message would that be?

Jensen: Combine our Forces! We need the engineers, the biologists, the material scientists, the chemists, the programmers, and the physicians all to work together. This is not a one-man show!

Jenny: What were/ was the best investment you made in bio-fabrication?

Jensen: Don’t have any, but we have submitted a large bid partnering with a leading 3D printing company to a government organization of the DoD that might very well turn out to be the best investment (in time, and later money) in 3D printing. The outcome may eventually be an artificial kidney. I think it is doable.

Jenny: What were/ was the worst investment you made in bio-fabrication?

Jensen: Again, don’t have any yet. Could be the above program bid…

Jenny: What was/is the biggest risk you took in your career?

Jensen: Probably not becoming and engineer as all my other class mates did. Probably not doing transcription factors but morphogens instead when all others did. Probably selecting developmental biology, when I had zero training and no mentoring. Probably not doing epigenetics when all other colleagues did. Believing that despite the risks, trusting my own instinct, even if the conventional wisdom would be not to go in the direction. Becoming entrepreneur at a late stage, when an academic career was secure. All these risks are equal to the opportunities that emerged. With no risk taken, few opportunities emerge. You have to be different, and believe that you can do what you seek to do. That is the true human superpower.

Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time?

Jensen: I love playing keyboards, skiing, good wine, and sports, such as soccer. I most enjoy, however, watching how my kids amaze me every day in what they do.

Jenny: What is your favorite quote? Why?

Jensen: Read “Nature Aphorisms” by Goethe. It is on the wall in my office. It is an ethos to Nature, and defines us in relation to our world around us, as it tells us how we are a part which we can’t separate.

Jenny: What does the word “3DHEALS” mean to you?  =)

Jensen: More, and more. Thank you for giving me the time to go through this reflective practice.

You may also want to read:

Interview: Jake Eva, Custom Orthopedic Solutions, Ohio

Interview: Professor Alexander Seifalian

Interview: Adam Jakus, Ph.D., Chief Technology of Dimension Inx LLC

The post Interview: Jan Jensen, Trailhead Biosystems appeared first on 3DHeals.

Mike Graffeo, CEO, Fluidform3D

A senior executive with a proven track record in commercialization of innovative medical technology, Mike is a results-oriented, decisive leader with a track record of successfully growing new businesses in both startup and growth organizations. Throughout his career, he has gained extensive experience translating highly complex devices and clinical data into successful businesses, both in the US and globally. Mike holds a BS in Engineering Physics and an MEng in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, as well as an MBA from Harvard Business School. Mike will also be speaking at the upcoming 3DHEALS2020 San Francisco on June 5-6th, 2020, along with 40+ other world-class speakers. 

Jenny: How did you first encounter bioprinting? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?

Mike: I’ve known Professor Adam Feinberg since college, and kept seeing updates on his research at CMU, which was where I first learned about the field of bioprinting. Having a background in the Medical Device industry, I immediately knew that this could change everything. Most of the last 60 years in MedDevice has been focused on creating mechanical replacements for the body. What I saw in bioprinting was the ability to develop a biology-focused approach. Even as a mechanical engineer, that was exciting!

Jenny: What inspired you to start your journey in bio-fabrication?

Mike: My co-founders had done years of amazing work to bring the FRESH 3D bioprinting technique they’d developed to the point where it was ready to be commercialized. When the group of us first sat down in early 2018, we saw that we each had highly complementary skills, and that coming together to start the company made a lot of sense. The focus initially has been on making LifeSupport™ Support Gel for FRESH 3D bioprinting available to the research community, to help others achieve their goals in 3D bioprinting of collagen and other hydrogels.

Jenny: Who/what inspired you the most along this journey?

Mike: 20+ years ago, I did a co-op with a company called Abiomed. At the time, their major focus was on developing an artificial heart. What I saw there was an opportunity to use my skills to make an impact on human health. I couldn’t imagine a more noble calling. I’ve been hooked ever since.

Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?

Mike: The people I have the privilege of working with at FluidForm. We’re immensely blessed to have an extraordinary group of talented, hard-working people who are doing amazing things.

Jenny: What are the biggest challenges in your current work? What are the potential solutions?

Mike: I’d like to see every biomedical engineering and cell biology lab in every college and university around the world doing bioprinting research. Today, getting started with 3D bioprinting is still overwhelming, especially in a lab that may not have experience with plastic 3D printing. We hope to inspire people with the results they can achieve, educate them on best practices, and enable them to bring the solutions to the clinic that patients so desperately need.

Jenny: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing the bio-printing industry? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?

Mike: I think there are challenges in each of three critical areas for the industry: technology, regulatory, and commercialization.

With the technology, we’re a little biased, but we believe FRESH and our LifeSupport product are going to enable printing of intricate scaffolds for any purpose. But once we have those scaffolds, we’re also going to need cells. Lots of cells. As the field matures, the need for cells of all types is going to explode.

Regulators are getting the first taste of some of the challenges with recently approved cell and gene therapies. However, building an effective regulatory framework is crucial to see the industry really advance. We’re really excited to be working with the Advanced Regenerative Manufacturing Institute (ARMI) and their experts on this front.

Ultimately, great technology only matters if it helps people in the real world. And that’s where commercialization matters. There are big questions left on this front, including how and where products will be manufactured and distributed, who will pay for them, and how we’ll measure value.

All of the above challenges must be addressed before the field will truly take off. Forward-thinking investors and strategics are placing bets today on solutions presenting themselves, and I agree, the need for these products is simply too great for any of these challenges to get in the way.

Jenny: If you are granted three wishes by a higher being, what would they be? 

Mike: First, I’d wish that we could all be kind to one another. Everybody we meet is dealing with stuff that we can’t begin to understand. Being kind is the first step to a better world.

Second, I’d make healthy food available and plentiful everywhere in the world. Hunger and malnutrition will continue to be the biggest barrier to increasing participation in the world’s innovation economy.

Third, I’d provide an education to all the world’s children, focused on more than just reading, writing and arithmetic. The world of 10-20 years from now will require resourcefulness, innovation, lateral thinking, and connectedness. We need to foster the development of those skills from an early age.

Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advice did you hear that they should ignore?

Mike: So many college students are given the advice to think of what they want to be doing in 10 years, and then figure out what the road map is to get there. I think that’s bad advice in today’s world. The world in 10 years is going to be unrecognizable, so the roadmaps we dream up today will be obsolete by then. I think it’s much more important to do something that “lights your fire”, that you can’t wait to get out of bed to get back to, that keeps you up late at night, not because you’re anxious, but because you love it and can’t stop thinking about it. And if you haven’t found that yet, keep exploring. You’re probably going to live until 100 and work well into your 70’s. You’ve got 50 years to figure things out. Don’t be afraid to try new things and make mistakes.

Jenny: If you could have a giant billboard to promote a message to millions and even billions of people in our community (i.e. healthcare 3D printing and bio-fabrication), what message would that be?

Mike: “Want an amazing career for the next 30 years or more? Learn 3D Bioprinting. Ask us how.”

Jenny: What were/was the best investment you made in bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Mike: Spending the time to get to know my co-founders. The work they’ve done at Carnegie Mellon is nothing short of remarkable. I couldn’t be doing any of this without them.

Jenny: What were/was the worst investment you made in bio-printing/bio-fabrication?

Mike: I honestly can’t think of a single investment of time, money, or attention directed at 3D bioprinting that I haven’t gotten something out of. I’ve learned so much, and still, feel like I’m just at the tip of the iceberg.

Jenny: What was/is the biggest risk you took in your career?

Mike: Taking a 50% pay cut to go out and be a sales rep. I had a family to care for, two little kids at home, and was betting that I could figure out how to be good enough at the job to make ends meet. It turns out to have unlocked the last decade of my career, so I’d say it worked out!

Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time? What are you passionate about outside of your work/3d printing?

Mike: I’m married with 2 kids at home. We love outdoor activities like biking and skiing and cruising on Disney Cruise Lines. I love endurance sports and playing the guitar.

Jenny: What is your favorite quote? Why?

Mike: To paraphrase Gandhi, “Be the change you want to see in the world”

Jenny: What does the word “3DHEALS” mean to you?  =)

Mike: I love the term, as it evokes not just palliative care, but the true goal of any medicine, to heal.

Related Articles:

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Pitch3D May 2019: Deep Health; Kumovis; PrinterPrezz; Fluidform

Eye-opening: 7the Annual UCLA CMIT Nanotechnology Conference

A Call to the Heart-A Perspective on the State of 3D Bioprinting of Cardiac Tissue

The post Bioprint Heart Components: Fluidform3D CEO Mike Graffeo (Video/Podcast) appeared first on 3DHeals.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead.   I love this quote because it gives me the courage to work on big problems with small teams and the confidence to know that our efforts can have an impact.”

 
Gray Chynoweth serves as Chief Membership Officer for ARMI | BioFabUSA where he oversees membership development and marketing activities and acts as a catalyst for the emerging biofabricaition ecosystem.
Prior to joining ARMI | BioFabUSA in January of 2018, Gray was an executive at multiple information technology companies.   As an early executive at Dyn (acquired by Oracle), Gray helped scale the company from less than 20 to more than 450 employees, raise $50,000,000 in venture capital funding, grow revenue 30x and establish global operations, with offices in the US, the UK, and Australia.
Gray holds a J.D. and M.A. in Public Policy from Duke University and was awarded a B.A. in Political Science from the University of California at Berkeley, where he graduated magna cum laude.

Mr. Gray Chynoweth will be presenting at our upcoming 3DHEALS Boston event.

Jenny: When was the first encounter you had with 3D printing? What was that experience like? What were you thinking at that moment?
Gray: My first experience with 3d printing was on a tour at DEKA with Dean Kamen when we visited the machine shop.  This occurred many years prior to starting my work with Dean at ARMI. What captured my attention about the technology was the design flexibility and innovation enablement that it offered to engineers and entrepreneurs.
Jenny: What inspired you to start your journey/company/career/research in 3D printing (bio-fabrication/bio-printing)?
Gray: Over my career, I’ve been able to scale companies and build commercial and community ecosystems.  It was exciting to think that I could deploy these skills, which had been focused in and around the IT industry, in an industry where products the save lives and help wounded warfighters.
Jenny: Who inspired you the most along this journey in 3D printing (bio-printing/bio-fabrication)? This can be a mentor, a patient, a celebrity, anyone basically. You can name more than one as well.
Gray: Dean Kamen’s vision that engineering breakthroughs and a diverse ecosystem of collaborators could act as the catalyst for rapid innovation and commercialization of engineered tissues and organs inspired me to join ARMI | BioFabUSA.
Jenny: What motivates you the most for your work?
Gray: From improving lives to reducing healthcare costs, to developing a next-generation manufacturing industry that provides quality job opportunities, the potential impact of ARMI | BioFabUSA’s work are deep, broad and profound.
Jenny: What is/are the biggest obstacle(s) in your line of work? If you have conquered them, what were your solutions?
Gray: ARMI’s mission is to make practical the large-scale manufacturing of engineered tissues and tissue-related technologies, to benefit existing industries and grow new ones.  To do this we’ll have to overcome many obstacles. Tissue and Organ manufacture need new manufacturing tools. They need better and better understood, regulatory pathways and standards frameworks.  They need capital. They need the costs of their therapies to be reimbursable. They need hospitals and clinicians that are ready, willing and able to deliver their therapies to patients.
Jenny: What do you think is (are) the biggest challenge(s) in 3D Printing/bio-printing? What do you think the potential solution(s) is (are)?
Gray: 3D bio-printing is only one part of the tissue and organ manufacturing process.   For 3D bio-printing to truly enable the manufacturing of engineered tissues and organs, these printers must be effectively integrated into an automated manufacturing process, not simply be suitable to stand-alone or prototyping activities.
Jenny: What advice would you give to a smart driven college student in the “real world”? What bad advice you heard should they ignore?
Gray: I’ve valued the lessons I learned from reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (Covey) and the 48 Laws of Power (Greene) and doing completing the StrengthsFinder workbook.
Jenny: What was/is the biggest risk you took in your career?
Gray: I left a promising partner-track career as a lawyer to join a small IT startup.
I left a set of deep connections and history of proven success in operations and IT to work in business development and BioTech.  
Jenny: What do you enjoy in your spare time? What are you passionate about outside of your work/3d printing?
Gray: I love New Hampshire and trying to make it a better place for people to stay, work and play.
Jenny: What is your favorite quote? Why?
Gray: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead.   I love this quote because it gives me the courage to work on big problems with small teams and the confidence to know that our efforts can have an impact.
 

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