Biofabrication 2019: Special Issue of Selected Papers from the Annual Meeting of the International Society for Biofabrication
Authors: Ciro A. Rodriguez, David Dean
Journal: Advanced Healthcare Materials (2020)

The Ohio State University had the honor and privilege of welcoming the annual meeting of the International Society for Biofabrication (ISBF), Biofabrication 2019, to Columbus, Ohio (October 20–22, 2019). The very first Biofabrication meeting was held prior to the founding of the ISBF at the University of Manchester, hosted by Brian Derby, Ph.D. (now a member of the ISBF Strategic Advisory Board). The ISBF was founded in 2010 by Professor Wei Sun, who served as the first president. According to its bylaws, the ISBF “promotes advances in biofabrication research, development, education, training, and medical and clinical applications”. The ISBF annual meeting has rotated annually between Asia, Europe, and the US since 2014. Biofabrication 2020 has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will be held at the University of Wollongong (Australia) September 26–29, 2021. Biofabrication 2022 will be held September 25–28 in Pisa, Italy. Biofabrication 2019 brought together attendees of whom 39% were university faculty, 23% industry representatives, and 38% students or postdoctoral researchers. The attendees traveled to Columbus from throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, the Middle East, and South America. The program consisted of five single track plenary presentations, 16 keynote, 89 standard podium presentations and 102 posters presented in two dedicated sessions. As noted by Groll et al., biofabrication has come to mean the 3D printing of live cells either via bioprinting or bioassembly [1]. Biofabrication 2019 track topics richly sampled the field, including: bioinks (two sessions), novel processing (two sessions), design, simulation & monitoring, the liver, musculoskeletal system (three sessions), the kidney, gastrointestinal system, (two sessions), brain & nervous system, cardiovascular system (two sessions), and cancer & regulatory aspects of biofabrication. As always, the ISBF's Biofabrication meeting captured the state-of-the-art, up and coming technologies, and techniques that have been licensed, are in clinical trial, or show promising in vivo or in vitro results. Indeed, most of the plenary and keynote presentations moved back and forth across the invention, validation, and translation biofabrication spectrum. Themes common to this meeting were on chip applications extending up from single cell types, cancer drug screening, to mixes of cells representing standard organs, to whole body-on-a-chip. From the society's inception, the high quality of presentations at ISBF annual meetings have been driven by the example set by the field's founders who also happen to be the ISBF's founders. Their active presence has drawn endorsements of the meeting from peer socieities, leading researchers from adjacent fields, established and startup companies, and scientists at the all stages of their careers. The ISBF recognized the highest quality presentations with eight Travel Awards and three Young Investigator awards (Gabrlella Lindberg, Ph.D., University of Otago, New Zealand; Jihoon Park, Ph.D., Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Winston Salem, North Carolina (NC); and Ashkan Shaflee Ph.D., Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Winston Salem, NC), Mid-Career Investigator award (Ferry Melchels Ph.D. Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK), and Senior Investigator award (Dong-Woo Cho Ph.D., Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, South Korea). The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine also awarded a Young Investigator Award (Saigopalakrishna Yermeni, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA) and IOP, the publisher of Biofabrication awarded three poster awards. The Program Committee wished to further document the high energy and high quality of the meeting with this special issue in Advanced Healthcare Materials consisting of papers deriving from presentations at Biofabrication 2019 that were accepted per the standard peer review process. Out of 20 manuscripts submitted for review and potential inclusion in the special issue, ten were accepted for publication. One additional paper by Eichholz et al., (see article number 2001102) not related to the Biofabrication 2019 conference, is included in this special issue because it covers a topic (melt electrowriting) that is relevant to the recent ISBF Biofabrication conferences. We summarize here some of the highlights from each of those papers to help you plan your reading of this special issue. The first group of papers deals with bioinks associated with 3D bioprinting. Abaci and Guvendiren (see article 2000734) review the procedures used to obtain extracellular matrix (ECM) material by decellularizing different tissues and then how that ECM can be used in preparing bioinks for biofabrication. These bioinks’ unique tissue-specific properties are expected to enhance their performance. Shavandi et al., (see article number 2001472) provide a review of bioprinting with sustainable materials. They focus on how lignocellulosic biomaterials (cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin) from a variety of sources (e.g., wood, bacteria, and fungi) could be used to form bioinks. Finally, Fan et al., (see article number 2001410) report a study that takes advantage of cellulose nanocrystals combined with gelatin methacryloyl/hyaluronic acid methacrylate (GelMA/HAMA) in order to generate a hybrid construct with stiff structural elements and a soft cytogel. In vitro validation is conducted with mouse chondrocytes. The second group of papers feature novel processes and materials in order to provide distinctive performance in the context of biofabrication. Zhou et al., (see article number 2001342) propose a novel catechol-mediated crosslinking strategy for hyaluronic acid (HACA) and alginate that occurs under mild conditions and produces a 3D coaxial construct with differentiated mechanical properties in each of the phases. The base material is a catechol functionalized ink system. In vitro validation is based on differentiation of mouse myoblasts into aligned myotubes. Parfenov et al., (see article number 2000721) report progress with the “scaffield” approach utilizing physical fields instead of biomaterial scaffolds to assemble tubuluar 3D constructs based on human bladder smooth muscle cell spheroids (myospheres). This scaffold-free and nozzle-free technique is a radical departure from established biofabrication methods. Exploring different directions in terms of process development, Erben et al., (see article number 2000918) target the miniaturization frontier in biofabrication. They report on the application of two-photon stereolithography (TPS), using protein-based photocurable resins, to build mm-scale structures with extreme resolution. In vitro validation was performed with mouse tendon stem/progenitor cells, mouse myoblasts, human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) and primary human lung fibroblasts. Finally, in this collection of process-oriented papers, Eichholz et al., (see article number 2001102) report on a novel process to apply nano-needle hydroxyapatite coatings on melt electrowritten (MEW) structures. Enhanced osteogenesis was observed using this approach. This observation is validated via increased mineralization of mesenchymal stem/stromal cell cultures. The last set of papers focus on the long term goal of using biofabrication for the regeneration (i.e., regenerative medicine) of specific organs. First, Ma et al., (see article number 2001517) review current progress in “on-chip” liver tissue models. Their goal for these liver models provides platforms for the agile development of new drugs and study of a wide range of diseases associated with this organ, while reducing the need for in vivo animal model testing at the same time. This extensive review covers both static and dynamic systems and summarizes the most promising process/material pairs. One of the most advanced applications of tissue engineering is the development of vascular grafts. In this context, Zbinden et al., (see article number 2001093) report progress on braided vascular grafts based on poly(glycolic acid) fibers coated with poly(glycerol sebacate). Braiding parameters are shown to influence the effectiveness of these vascular grafts, as indicated by in vivo validation with mouse models. Mirhaidari et al., (see article number 2001094) report on the influence of interleukin-10, an anti-inflammatory cytokine, on the performance of vascular grafts. Finally, Fang et al., (see article number 2000782) focus on bifurcated vascular grafts. Their proposed approach is based on the use of anisotropic scaffolds in order to sufficiently orient neovasculature formation. This collection of papers highlights the significant progress achieved in the field of biofabrication as presented at Biofabrication 2019. From cutting-edge bioink formulations and novel processing approaches to organ-specific developments, the selected papers showcase many of the recent achievements that are continuing to occur in the field of biofabrication despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Those strong efforts toward understanding and the tissue-specific components of organ function and how it can be generated or restored showcase the maturity of both the biofabrication field and the discussion at the ISBF's Biofabrication meeting. We hope that this special issue will encourage work to continue during the pandemic and ready us to reconvene when travel and in person discourse is again possible. We would like to thank all members of the Biofabrication 2019 Program Committee for their extraordinary effort in putting together an inspiring program. We would also like to thank the authors for their excellent contributions to this special issue and for their efforts to share their perspectives on, and excellent work in, the field of biofabrication. We sincerely thank The Ohio State University for providing its hotel, the Blackwell Inn, as the meeting's social hub, and the Ohio Union, as the congress center. We also wish to thank Dr. Uta Goebel and her colleagues at Advanced Healthcare Materials for their support of, and work on, this special issue of papers by the attendees of Biofabrication 2019. And most importantly, we would like to thank the attendees for presenting many of their recent scientific successes at Biofabrication 2019. We extend our best wishes to the biofabrication community to stay safe and healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ciro A. Rodriguez received a B.S. in mechanical engineering from The University of Texas at Austin in 1989 and a Ph.D. from the Ohio State University (OSU) in 1997. He is currently a professor at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico, leading a multidisciplinary research group in advanced manufacturing, and Visiting Scientist at the Osteo Engineering Lab of OSU. His current research interests include medical devices, scaffolds for tissue engineering, additive manufacturing, and laser processing, including international collaborations with groups in the USA, UK, and Spain. His industrial experience includes tooling design for automotive components and machining process development. David Dean's research focuses on medical procedures and devices primarily related to musculoskeletal reconstructive surgery. After his Ph.D., his postdoctoral research at the Institute of Reconstructive and Plastic Surgery (New York University) used average skull images as targets for surgical simulation and intra-operative guidance. In July 1994, he joined Case Western Reserve University where he began using average skull images to design and fabricate cranial implants in the Department of Neurological Surgery. He was the first person to use an anatomical template to design and 3D print a patient-specific cranial implant, a procedure that is now standard-of-care. In 2013 his primary appointment moved to the Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at The Ohio State University and, currently, the Materials Science and Engineering Department. Here he leads the Osteo Engineering Lab where novel bone tissue engineering research uses 3D-printed, resorbable, solid-cured polymers as well as bioprinted, cell-laden, hydrogels. He is also working on the 3D printing of two biometals, NiTi and a resorbable, patent-pending Mg alloy. Both are being used to develop stiffness-matched, skeletal fixation devices. Taken together, these technologies portend significant improvements in musculoskeletal reconstructive surgical outcomes.