Sep 12, 2025 At our latest 3DHEALS event, we explored groundbreaking innovations in biomaterials from some of the best healthcare 3D printing companies and researchers. Five expert speakers shared their perspectives on bioprinting standardization, emerging biomaterial technologies, and the creation of human-like extracellular matrices. Highlights included inventive approaches such as genetically engineering plants to produce collagen and the value of experience in biomaterials development. It’s an event jam-packed with incredible biomaterials for 2025 and beyond. Watch the recording on 3DHEALS courses and read our recap below.
How are innovators bringing standardization into bioprinting? BIO INX has the answer.
The beauty of cells lies in their ability to grow in complex ways, creating highly organized structures in the chaos of dynamic environments. Yet, at the same time, cells rely on specific biomolecular and physical cues to grow in the way we expect. To bring reliable bioprinted tissues to life in the clinic, reproducibility will key. And for Dr. Jasper Van Hoorick that level of consistency starts with bioinks, the building blocks of bioprinting.
Dr. Hoorick, Co-Founder and CEO of BIO INX, described the “biofabrication deception” – the observation that researchers buy a bioprinter in hopes of transferring their 2D experiments into 3D but end up failing due to a variety of reasons: lack of expertise in making bioinks, mismatched expectations of what bioprinters can and cannot do, and more. Driven by seeing how biomaterials such as gelatin methacryloyl (Gel-MA) have poor reproducibility from lab to lab, Dr. Hoorick founded BIO INX to create a standardized set of bioinks that are ready-to-use and have predictable properties for tissue engineering.
Included in their portfolio is GEL-MA INX, a reproducible Gel-MA ink, as well as DEGRES INK, a polyester-based resin with shape memory behavior. This ink allows 3D-printed constructs to change shape when exposed to human body temperatures, enabling implants that morph into complex shapes once placed in the body.
The real innovations in bioprinting come not from the discoveries, but from the foresight of innovators to design materials, protocols, and printing configurations that are easily reproducible by design. Standards don’t come about until someone takes the initiative to set the bar, and the materials that set those standards are the ones that are strategically designed to be easy for people across the globe to replicate in their own labs.
Dr. Hoorick is setting that bar through reproducible inks from BIO INX, but it will still take a community to create standardization. Lowering the barrier to entry for users with varying levels of resources and expertise through innovations that are cross-compatible between different brands of printers and use cases will enable more people to become 3D printing enthusiasts and continue advancing the field.
What are the latest biomaterial strategies being explored in research? Here are two from Dr. Levato’s lab.
Dr. Riccardo Levato, Associate Professor at the Regenerative Medicine Center in Utrecht, shared some fascinating advances in biomaterials for volumetric (light-based tomographic) bioprinting.
In a recent preprint, Dr. Levato’s group developed a Gel-MA hydrogel that combines supramolecular interactions and different levels of methacrylation. By varying the amount of methacrylation, they can tune the biomaterial’s mechanical properties, such as altering the compressive modulus. And the combination of methacrylation with supramolecular interactions (non-covalent, “impermanent” bonds) allowed them to print hydrogels that maintain their shape, unlike traditional Gel-MA that collapsed.
To test the applicability of their approach, they bioprinted breast-shaped hydrogels containing healthy cell spheroids and a tumor organoid, discovering that engineered CAR-T cells were able to find and attack the tumor in their hybrid hydrogel but were unsuccessful in traditional gels, which ultimately inhibited cell migration. The incorporation of supramolecular interactions in their hydrogel may allow cells to alter and migrate in their environment, a promising approach to more closely mirror the dynamic nature of cells in the body.
Chemically altering popular biomaterials to exhibit desirable properties is an important research avenue, but what if you could perform the modifications after printing? Postprinting modifications could enable changing the cellular environment over time and in specific regions, mimicking the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of growth factors and other chemical cues that guide cell development.
To accomplish this, Dr. Levato’s group has demonstrated how they first printed a hydrogel using volumetric printing with gelNOR, a modified form of gelatin. Once the structure is printed, they infused VEGF, a type of growth factor, and used light to induce click chemistry reactions, causing the VEGF to bind to only specific regions in the hydrogel. Cells in the hydrogel preferentially grew in regions with VEGF compared to areas without, paving the way for better control over how cells grow in both space and time.
Which biomaterials are best at replicating the human cellular microenvironment? Quantis offers a promising solution.
The extracellular environment is a vibrant mosaic of biomolecules and physical forces working in concert to affect the behavior of cells. Creating realistic tissues will require more advanced biomaterials: ones with the right composition of extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins, placed in the right location, to allow cells to grow into structures with organ-like directionality rather than uniform blobs of cells.
Dr. Janaina Dernowsek, Co-Founder and CEO of Quantis Biotechnology, recognized the need for readily available biomaterials that are more human-like and do not require animals for production. The company bioprints tissue constructs from human primary cells and allows the cells to grow, producing essential ECM proteins such as collagen, elastin, fibronectin, and glycosaminoglycans. The proteins are then extracted as their QMatrix formulation, which encourages higher cell viability compared to normal culture media.
Dr. Dernowsek described how the company is continuing to expand, using their human-like ECM for dermal fillers, wound healing hydrogels, dentistry bio-cement, and more. What will be critical moving forward for the field is a collection of easily reproducible ECM formulations that allow specific cell types to grow in the right locations at the right time. Dr. Dernowsek is already making strides in this area, and Quantis is setting the stage for bioprinted organs of the future that capture the full complexity of the cellular microenvironment.
How are genetically modified plants being used to make bioprinting inks? CollPlant is capturing the spotlight.
With regulatory agencies pushing for alternatives to animal models and testing, inventing new, creative solutions that mimic human biology will be a key avenue for the bioprinting field. So who’s putting creativity to action? Look no further than CollPlant, a company that’s genetically engineering tobacco plants to produce type I collagen for tissue engineering.
Bowman Bagley, Vice President of Commercial at CollPlant, described how the company genetically modified tobacco leaves to contain five genes based on the human sequence needed to produce type I collagen. Their solution has been designed with large organ manufacturing in mind: the collagen is methacrylated to have stronger crosslinking and higher durability, is designed not to gel at room temperature to ensure physical properties do not change while printing, and can be about 3x more concentrated and 2x more methacrylated than other collagens.
Producing ECM proteins that are consistent from batch to batch and at scale will require innovators to tap into creative, out-of-the-box solutions. Genetically modifying plants is a promising endeavor, but it certainly presents challenges to get the desired human protein with high enough yields and purity. However, in the era of exciting advances in gene editing, 3D printing innovators have much to look out for in these adjacent fields. For Bagley, plants are the hope for a brighter future in human tissue engineering, and it’s this creativity and courage to pursue unique solutions that are expanding 3D printing’s potential.
Who’s bringing experience in biomaterials to the table? Turn to Poly-Med.
Bioresorbable materials, which degrade naturally in the body and are gradually replaced by native cells and extracellular matrix, are highly desired in tissue engineering because they eliminate the need for a second surgery to remove them. These materials support the regeneration of tissue with more desirable biological and mechanical properties, as the new tissue is formed by the body’s own cells.
Poly-Med, a company that specializes in these types of absorbable materials, has been in the field for over 30 years. Dr. Scott Taylor, CTO at Poly-Med, described how the company produces a wide range of materials for FDM and UV-based printing. By basing their FDM bioinks on materials with a history of safe use, Dr. Taylor pointed out that the regulatory pathway is well supported, reducing the challenges for innovators to create devices based on these bioinks.
What we’re thinking
Combining expertise in biomaterials and a passion for 3D printing, Dr. Taylor and our other speakers are lowering the barrier to entry for everyone to get into the field. The 3D bioprinting community is stronger today because of this emphasis on servicing others, from BIO INX’s standardized materials that are making it easier for labs worldwide to reproduce scientific results to Quantis’ ECM, which captures the complexity of human biology for all to use. It’s been an incredible event, and we can’t wait to see where the field of biomaterials goes next. Join us live at our future events by subscribing to 3DHEALS.
Mini-glossary
- Gel-MA = gelatin methacryloyl
- CAR = chimeric antigen receptors
- gelNOR = thiol-ene photo-cross-linkable norbornene-modified gelatin
- VEGF = vascular endothelial growth factor
- ECM = extracellular matrix
About the Author:
Peter Hsu
Peter Hsu is an editorial intern for 3DHEALS. He is currently an undergraduate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and studies bioengineering with a focus on cell and tissue engineering. He is also minoring in computer science with interests in artificial intelligence and image processing. Peter conducts research on using computer vision methods to analyze human tissue images and improving the robustness of machine learning workflows. He is interested in the use of AI to assist tissue engineering and bioprinting research for medical applications. He is passionate about science communication and leads STEM outreach lessons at schools in the central Illinois area.
Related Links:
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Microfluidics, Technology, Commercialization (On Demand, 2021)
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