January Researchers make breakthrough in bioprinting functional human heart tissue

Researchers at University of Galway have developed a way of bioprinting tissues that change shape as a result of cell-generated forces, in the same way that it happens in biological tissues during organ development.

The breakthrough science focused on replicating heart tissues, bringing research closer to generating functional, bioprinted organs, which would have broad applications in disease modelling, drug screening and regenerative medicine.

The research was led by a team at the School of Engineering and CÚRAM Research Ireland Centre for Medical Devices at University of Galway and has been published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

Bioprinting technology uses living cells within specialised “bioink” materials – a substance or material which can support living cells, and due to its characteristics, it can aid cell adhesion, proliferation and differentiation during maturation. The technology offers immense promise for creating lab-grown organs that closely resemble the structure of their human equivalent.

However, bioprinting fully functional organs remains a significant hurdle. For instance, while bioprinted heart tissues can contract, their force of contraction is often considerably weaker than that of a healthy adult heart.

Traditional bioprinting methods often aim to directly recreate the final anatomical shape of an organ, like the heart – therefore overlooking the crucial role of dynamic shape changes during natural embryonic development. For example, the heart begins as a simple tube that undergoes a series of bends and twists to form its mature four-chambered structure. These shape-morphing behaviours are essential for sculpting heart cell development and maturation.

The University of Galway research team recognised this and developed a novel bioprinting technique that incorporates crucial shape-changing behaviours.

Ankita Pramanick, lead author of the study and CÚRAM PhD Candidate at University of Galway, said: “Our work introduces a novel platform, using embedded bioprinting to bioprint tissues that undergo programmable and predictable 4D shape-morphing driven by cell-generated forces. Using this new process, we found that shape-morphing improved the structural and functional maturity of bioprinted heart tissues.”

The research showed that cell-generated forces could guide the shape-morphing of bioprinted tissues, and it was possible to control the magnitude of the shape changes by modifying factors such as the initial print geometry and bioink stiffness. Morphing was found to sculpt cell alignment and enhance the contractile properties of the tissues. The research team also developed a computational model that could predict tissue shape-morphing behaviour.

Professor Andrew Daly, Associate Professor in Biomedical Engineering and CÚRAM funded investigator and principal investigator on the project, said: “Our research shows that by allowing bioprinted heart tissues to undergo shape-morphing, they start to beat stronger and faster. The limited maturity of bioprinted tissues has been a major challenge in the field, so this was an exciting result for us. This allows us to create more advanced bioprinted heart tissue, with the ability to mature in a laboratory setting, better replicating adult human heart structure. We are excited to build on this shape-morphing approach in our ongoing European Research Council project, which is focused on developmentally-inspired bioprinting.

“We are still a long way away from bioprinting functional tissue that could be implanted in humans, and future work will need to explore how we can scale our bioprinting approach to human-scale hearts.

“We will need to integrate blood vessels to keep such large constructs alive in the lab, but ultimately, this breakthrough brings us closer to generating functional bioprinted organs, which would have broad applications in cardiovascular medicine.”

The full study can be read in Advanced Functional Materials here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adfm.202414559#adfm202414559-bib-0004

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