Led by MIT Media Lab Associate Professor Neri Oxman, a team of researchers have developed a method for printing 3D objects with living cells that are embedded in the surface.
“We call them hybrid living materials, or HLMs,” said graduate student Rachel Soo Hoo Smith, a member of the research team.
To create HLMs, a resin object integrated with chemical signals is first printed with a multi-material inkjet 3D printer before being sprayed with a coat of hydrogel that is infused with biologically engineered microbes.
Once the chemical signals activate the microbes, certain colours or fluorescence are displayed. The colours represent the successful incorporation of living cells in the 3D-printed object.
In a paper published by the research team in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, the new 3D printing method of HLMs is described as having the potential to lead great advancements in biomedicine among other fields.
“There are exciting practical applications with this approach, since designers are now able to control and pattern the growth of living systems through a computational algorithm,” said Oxman. “Combining computational design, additive manufacturing, and synthetic biology, the HLM platform points toward the far-reaching impact these technologies may have across seemingly disparate fields, ‘enlivening’ design and the object space.”
