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Abstract: Patient-specific treatments are of paramount importance. Clinicians and biomedical engineers have long desired to deliver strategies enabling on-demand fabrication of customized tissue scaffolds and implant geometries. The first international workshop on the subject defined bioplotting or bioprinting as the use of material transfer processes for patterning and assembling biologically rel... read moreevant materials-molecules, cells, tissues, and biodegradable biomaterials-with a prescribed organization to accomplish one or more biological functions. The ability to design tailored implant and scaffold geometries using three-dimensional patient scans and computer-aided design currently exist. However, patient-specific designs require the development of accurate high-resolution fabrication techniques. The novelty of this work is the strategy employed to cure structurally robust 3-D bioink prints. Current additive bio-printers use curing mechanisms which are biologically deleterious. In contrast, cell-plotters are less damaging but produce prints which lack mechanical or cohesive strength. This approach is able to produce mechanically robust prints without harmful or damaging curing mechanisms. We hypothesize that the unique stabilizing properties and self-organizing mechanism of aqueous silk protein, enhanced with non-toxic additives, can be exploited to enable nonthermoplastic fused filament fabrication of resorbable biopolymer scaffolds and medical devices via programmed three-dimensional deposition. This thesis details the complete design and development of self-curing bioinks and a robotic deposition system and programming for the purpose of 2-D and 3-D rapid prototyping. Here we demonstrate preliminary work towards print precision and modulation, replication of CAD geometry, and high slice number 3-D prints which demonstrate macroscale geometry and structural strength. Successful application of this bioprinter and strategy were achieved as work in the areas of bioprinting, implant fabrication, and cell-plotting.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Tufts University, 2015.
Submitted to the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering.
Advisor: David Kaplan.
Committee: Fiorenzo Omenetto, Barry Trimmer, and Samuel Lin.
Keyword: Biomedical engineering.read less
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