Cheng Zhang, Jiangtao Hao, Weiliang Shi, Ya Su, Kellen Mitchell, Weijian Hua, Wenbo Jin, Serena Lee, Lai Wen, Yifei Jin, Danyang Zhao
Heart valve disease has become a serious global health problem, which calls for numerous implantable prosthetic valves to fulfill the broader needs of patients. Although current three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting approaches can be used to manufacture customized valve prostheses, they still have some complications, such as limited biocompatibility, constrained structural complexity, and difficulty to make heterogeneous constructs, to name a few. To overcome these challenges, a sacrificial scaffold-assisted direct ink writing approach has been explored and proposed in this work, in which a sacrificial scaffold is printed to temporarily support sinus wall and overhanging leaflets of an aortic valve prosthesis that can be removed easily and mildly without causing any potential damages to the valve prosthesis...
August 14, 2023: Biofabrication