Modeling on the Three-Dimensional Printing of Human Organs

Abstract

This work demonstrates how information technology can be employed onto biofabrication, specifically showing a computational modeling and simulation. Organ printing is an emerging solid scaffold-free biofabrication technology or layer by layer additive bioprinting of functional 3D human tissue and organ constructs from self-assembling tissue spheroids. Organ printing comes as an alternative way to the tissue engineering. Damaged and diseased organs could be replaced by the new organ fabricated by a 3D printer. The biofabrication cycle is too complex. On the beginning, the input is feed by medical images or an organ design. At an intermediary level, the blueprint and bioprinting further the bioreactor for the organ maturation take place. At the end, the clinical phase. In order to have a final 3D bioprinted organ, the complete biofabrication cycle has to be accomplished. All of these phases are associated to the information technology (IT) since image treatments, computational simulations, organ representation through a virtual model are straightly involved. At this moment, the focus is on the maturation phase. Mathematical modeling and computer simulation have been used to estimate proper design parameters and maturation scenario. After 3D printing the human organ, this needs to be matured in a bioreactor in order to be implantable. Bioreactors are used to accelerate tissue maturation through the control of their mechanical, biochemical and electrical conditions maintaining the viability of the engineered tissue. This work presents an incipient study that reproduces elements included in the bioreactor approach with some variables considered at the simulations based on the finite element method running on Ansys CFX software.