Bioprinting drug delivery is a method of using the three-dimensional printing of biomaterials through an additive manufacturing technique to develop drug delivery vehicles that are biocompatible tissue-specific hydrogels or implantable devices. 3D bioprinting uses printed cells and biological molecules to manufacture tissues, organs, or biological materials in a scaffold-free manner that mimics living human tissue to provide localized and tissue-specific drug delivery, allowing for targeted disease treatments with scalable and complex geometry.
This technique was first developed in the 1950s as patients with incurable diseases demanded higher organ transplantation needs than available donors, and organ transplantations showed limitations with immune responses and organ rejection.[1] Techniques that have been studied include bioprinting hydrogels with various Bio-ink (cell-laden microgel) materials and bioprinting implantable devices that mimic specific tissues or biological functions. A few applications of these printed vehicles include promoting wound healing by delivering antibiotics, anti-inflammatory treatments, or drugs that promote cell differentiation and cell proliferation, providing anticancer treatments directly to tumors, and promoting or inhibiting angiogenesis and vascularization to treat cancer, arterial diseases, heart diseases, and arthritis. In addition, implants can be printed in unique shapes and forms to deliver drugs directly into targeted tissues. A new approach includes adding a fourth dimension to 3D bioprinting, which allows the printed biomaterials to conform, either folding or unfolding, to release drugs in a more controlled manner. Whether 3D or 4D, the application of bioprinting to the development of drug delivery systems allows for biocompatible, biodegradable, universal, and personalized drug vehicles.