Reproducing biological tissues

• Project number: SC17-016
• Project management: Dieter Pahr, Karl Landsteiner University for Health Sciences / Department of Biomechanics
• Project duration: 34 months from 1 December 2018

Background

3D printing, also known as additive manufacturing (AM) or rapid prototyping, has become a versatile tool with a wide range of applications in manufacturing, art, design and medicine. In the field of biomedical engineering, AM has not only gained popularity in tissue engineering for printed scaffolds and in biomechanics for patient-specific prostheses, but has also been proposed as a tool for producing realistic 3D models. For example, custom modelling of patient-specific prostheses using AM provides surgeons with an excellent opportunity to practice procedures in advance. Studies have shown that this reduces surgery time and increases physician confidence, resulting in shorter radiation times and lower costs. Although 3D modelling approaches for pre-operative planning have already been reported, the mechanical properties of printed materials still need to be studied in more detail. Currently, these models lack an accurate representation of the biomechanics of the tissue. This requires a process to fine-tune the mechanical properties of the 3D printed materials to accurately match the conditions in vivo. In this project, 3D printing is used to produce materials that mimic biological tissues and organ-like structures in terms of their mechanical properties. The printed sheets can be used in a patient-specific way for pre-operative planning as well as in a standardised way for research applications related to the development of new surgical techniques, implantation technologies and other medical devices. One of the incentives is to limit the need for donor organs and reduce the variability of organs used in research. As the capabilities of 3D printing are currently rapidly increasing, this research can also be considered as a basis for further applications related to printed organs that may be possible with future technology. The main objectives of this project are:
To establish a test protocol to capture characteristic biomechanical parameters of different tissues, to develop software tools to achieve these parameters in 3D printed structures (based on appropriate material combinations and their spatial distribution, as well as post-processing methods), to print tissue replicas, and to validate their mechanical properties by comparison with actual tissue properties. All instructions for producing these models must be included in a so-called "toolbox".