Bioprinting gives insight into kidney function

3D bioprinting has brought the future of producing human tissues and organs that can accurately recreate body functions for drug screening, disease modeling and regenerative medicine closer to reality.

Jennifer Lewis, ScD, and a team of researchers at Wyss Institute in Boston have used 3D bioprinting to create a functioning renal structure containing epithelial that is a replication of the proximal tubule of the kidney.

"The current work further expands our bioprinting platform to create functional human tissue architectures with both technological and clinical relevance," said Lewis, Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

The renal tubule, which is responsible for the absorption of up to 80 percent of nutrients, was created using a 3D-printed silicone gasket for a mold as an evolution of the previous method of bioprinting living cells to form thick layers of tissue. This modeling may be scaled up and rendered into an implant. The accuracy of the printed model gives clinicians tools for evaluating different treatments for diseases and how drugs affect the kidneys.

"This advance in 3D printing of living tissues that recapitulate crucial organ functions by [the research] team opens a new path to engineering model systems for drug development, as well as for creating more functional extracorporeal devices and whole organ implants in the future," said Donald Ingber, MD, PhD, founding director of the Wyss Institute.