Patents granted in Europe and the USA

Bioprinting has emerged over the past decade or so as a bioengineering research discipline, and generally refers to the processing of biological materials (cells, proteins, pharmaceuticals) and materials to create structures which have a designed biological function (Murphy & Atala, doi:10.1038/nbt.2958). Whilst bioprinting has been the subject of much research activity, it has not yet developed to the stage where there are any major clinical applications.  The anticipated application areas for the technology are:

  • in the creation of heterogeneous tissue models for disease modelling, toxicology, new drug screening, personalised diagnostics and theranostics (including “organ-on-a-chip” type models).
  • for tissue engineered implants which are constituted of multiple cell types.

Gels are attractive materials for processing cells as they provide an aqueous, biocompatible environment with scope for a wide range of biomolecules to be incorporated into the gel.

The Jetbio ReJI technique jets two gel precursors at one another. They mix in mid-air and then land on a substrate as a gel. Because the two precursors are still liquid as they are bio-printed, lower pressures are used in the process which increases the viability to carry cells.

The printing process can create droplet arrays, and gels in 2D and 3D.

Jetbio Reji Diagram

Professor Kenny Dalgarno, Jetbio’s CSO explains how our process is used to scalably create in vitro leukaemia models

Professor Kenny Dalgarno, Jetbio’s CSO explains how our process is used to scalably create in vitro leukaemia models

Why is our technology groundbreaking? Jetbio systems can print…

  • Very high cell densities with superior functionality

  • On any substrate

  • In cell-gel-fibre composites

  • Rapidly

What does this mean for healthcare?

  • Printing cancer models for leukaemia. Printed stem cells (MSCs) to create a 3D bone marrow model, and then expose the bone marrow model to leukaemia cells to track leukaemia development

  • Printing onto living tissue to see how cancer cells invade healthy tissue

  • Printing 3D cardiac cell cultures where the cells “beat” in time with each other, although we haven’t printed a beating heart yet!!

Henry Royce Institute logo

Jetbio printer trial for clinical regenerative medicine environments – Newcastle and Cambridge Universities

  • Funded by the Royce Industrial Collaboration Programme: Oct 23 to Feb 24
  • Jetbio working with Newcastle and Cambridge Universities to understand how the bioprinter should be developed for the particular needs of clinical regenerative medicine environments, taking the NICE approved process of autologous chondrocyte implantation (ACI) as an examplar.