Novel bioprinters for 3D In Vitro Models (3D-IV)

The award will support Kenneth to purchase 3D bioprinting equipment for use at three establishments – the Universities of Cambridge, Newcastle and Bristol applying his bioprinting technology to in vitro models of tissue development and disease, increasing their utility as a replacement for animal use. The funding also supports the delivery of demonstration workshops to a wider community of researchers, including within the GW4 alliance.

This award was made as part of the 2024 non-animal methods infrastructure grants supported with funding from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT).

Bioprinting technologies provide for an automated way of making cell cultures and co-cultures which can be applied to the production of in vitro models of tissues and diseases. In vitro models of this type offer alternatives to animal testing in the development of new drugs and therapies, and are expected to play a key role in reducing and replacing animal testing. This project focusses on a new type of bioprinting (reactive jet impingement, or ReJI) developed at Newcastle University which has advantages over existing techniques in terms of the quality of the in vitro models which can be produced, and flexibility it offers life scientists in the development of new in vitro models. Currently the technique is only available at Newcastle, and this project will also make the technology available to life science researchers at Bristol and Cambridge Universities, and researchers at each of the three Universities will collaborate to validate and demonstrate the technology to the UK scientific community.

The aim of the project is to accelerate the adoption of novel 3D bioprinting techniques in the development and scale-up of in vitro models of diseases for drug development. The project will build on the development of the ReJI bioprinting process and will add complementary techniques of micro-valve and ink-jet bioprinting to create a unique bioprinter with capabilities which go beyond those of any commercially available bioprinter.

The key objectives are:

1. To build three state-of-the-art bioprinters, integrating ReJI, inkjet and microvalve print modes, and install these at the Universities of Newcastle, Cambridge, and Bristol.
2. To train key users at the three sites in the use of the bioprinters.
3. To conduct validation testing of the bioprinter performance in the production of specific in vitro models of leukaemia, liver cancer, embryonic development, osteoarthritis and cardiac drug safety assessment.
4. To run three workshops, one at each site, to publicise the technology and highlight the 3Rs benefits to a wide range of academic and industrial researchers.

The technology is potentially applicable to a wide range of tissues and conditions, and the long-term aim is for the technology to play a role in significantly reducing the need for animal testing through providing tissue models which are more predictive, more cost effective, and easier to run than animal studies. This would have a very significant impact in reducing the scale of animal testing locally, nationally and internationally.