4D Biofabrication for Vascularization

Lack of vascularization is a major obstacle to the development of functional artificial tissues and/or organs. Limited by the diffusion distance in biological tissues (i.e. ~100-200 µm), current tissue engineering strategies, such as organoid and organ-on-chip, only allow the construction of functional tissues at sub-millimeter scale which is inadequate to form thicker tissues and scale up for bioengineered organs. Therefore, the in vitro creation of thick, vascularized human tissues (>200 µm) remains one of the moonshot challenges in tissue engineering. In this talk, an innovative approach for 4D, high-resolution biofabrication of vasculaturization will be discussed. This approach, when combined with the advancement of a novel biofabrication technique for creating bioartificial blood vessels, shows great potential in achieving a completely biofabricated hierarchical vascular network.

Professor Will Shu is a currently serving as the Hay Chair and Head of Department in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Nanoscience from the University of Cambridge, where he also completed postdoctoral research. Prior to joining Strathclyde, he held academic positions at Heriot-Watt University, advancing from Lecturer to Reader in Biomedical Microengineering between 2007 and 2016. His research focuses on 3D biofabrication, bioprinting, digital twins and surgical technologies. He is currently the PI leading a major UK research council funded research project, with a consortium of 4 universities (including Strathclyde, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Imperial) for developing next-generation digital twins for surgical training and navigation using biofabrication technologies. He serves in the editorial board member for a number of journals including Biofabrication, Biomedical Materials and Bone Research.