Bioprinting in cardiovascular tissue engineering: a review

Abstract

Fabrication techniques for cardiac tissue engineering have been evolving around scaffold-based and scaf-fold-free approaches. Conventional fabrication approaches lack control over scalability and homogeneous cell distribu-tion. Bioprinting provides a technological platform for controlled deposition of biomaterials, cells, and biological fac-tors in an organized fashion. Bioprinting is capable of alternating heterogeneous cell printing, printing anatomical rele-vant structure and microchannels resembling vasculature network. These are essential features of an engineered cardiac tissue. Bioprinting can potentially build engineered cardiac construct that resembles native tissue across macro to na-noscale.