Dr. Yilei Mao is a Professor of Surgery in the Department of Liver Surgery, Peking Union Medical College (PUMC) Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and PUMC. He is the Deputy Chair of the Chinese Society of Liver Surgeons, an expert committee member of National Tumor Standardized Diagnosis and Treatment (Liver Cancer) of Ministry of Health, and committee members of The Chinese Medical Association Liver Surgery Branch, Liver Cancer division of Chinese Society of Clinical Oncology, and the Biomanufacturing Engineering Branch of the Chinese Mechanical Engineering Association. He is currently also a member of American Society of Nutrition. He specializes in the diagnosis and surgical treatment of abdominal surgery, mainly liver and biliary diseases, as well as the treatment of difficult and critical surgical diseases and clinical nutritional support. He is in the international forefront in the application and promotion of 3D bioprinting technology in the medical field. Having graduated domestically and residency trained in Australia, he received his Ph.D. degree in Lund University, Sweden in 1997 under the supervision of Prof. Stig Bengmark, the then member of Academia Europaea and chairman of International Hepato-Pancreato-Bilary Association. Dr. Mao had his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and clinical training at Surgical Oncology of Massachusetts General Hospital. Among numbers of professional awards, Dr Mao was awarded the Li Foundation Heritage Prize for excellence in creativity in 2001, the first prize of national Excellent Researches of General Surgeons for three times, and the first prize of China National Cancer Center award in 2011. He is the PIs of several research projects supported by China Medical Board of New York, National Natural Science Foundation, and etc. He has published more than 100 articles in domestic and international journals; Dr. Mao presently serves as the deputy editor-in-chief and editorial board member in 11 core Chinese journals.

Topic title: Three-dimensional bioprinted hepatorganoids & 3D bioprinting primary liver cancer for precision medicine

Abstract:

3D bioprinting is an innovative biofabrication strategy that enables the creation of bioactive artificial multicellular tissues/organs, offering a novel approach and method for developing new human tissue models that closely resemble real physiological conditions. On one hand, 3D bioprinting presents exciting prospects in simulating human normal tissue and organ physiological functions, making the regeneration of complex living tissues and automated production possible. At the same time, bioprinted disease tissue models, such as tumors, play a significant role in the treatment of certain diseases, novel drug screening, and toxicity prediction.

Here, we successfully printed a stable 3D liver organoid in vitro (3DP-HO model), which exhibited systematic liver functions both in vitro and in vivo. Through transplantation assays, we demonstrated the 3DP-HO model of liver tissues possessed in vivo hepatic functions and alleviated liver failure after transplantation, suggesting that 3D bioprinting could be used to generate human liver tissues as alternative transplantation donors for the treatment of liver diseases. The model may also serve as a rescue bridge for transitioning from liver failure to liver regeneration or act as a supplement towards extensive hepatectomy resection and temporary maintenance of the liver during a waiting period for transplantation.

Additionally, we achieved another breakthrough by extending 3D bioprinting using primary human HCC cells. We successfully established the patient-derived 3D bio-printed HCC (3DP-HCC) models, and after long-term culture, these models grew well and retained the features of parental HCCs. Furthermore, we demonstrated that 3DP-HCC models were capable of displaying drug screening results intuitively and quantitatively, making them suitable for evaluating the efficacy of multiple candidate drugs for HCC patients. Therefore, 3DP-HCC models are faithful in vitro models that are reliable in long-term culture and able to predict patient-specific drugs for personalized treatment.