Bioprinting

Bioprinting deposits living cells, growth factors, and scaffold materials in precise three-dimensional patterns — the same additive logic as plastic 3D printing, but the ink is biology. The goal is tissue that survives, vascularises, and eventually functions: skin grafts first, then cartilage, then more complex organs. The hard part is not the printing but what comes after: cells must receive oxygen and nutrients through capillaries too fine to print at current resolutions, and the immune system must tolerate the result. Most clinical applications today are thin or avascular tissues; a printable kidney remains unsolved.