12th ibiTea on November 21, 2024: This event took place in the past, the registration is closed.
Next-Generation 3D Bioprinting for Disease Modeling and Personalized Medicine
Presented by Cristina Scielzo, IRCCS Hospital San Raffaele Milan, Italy and
Gianluca Cidonio, Sapienza University of Rome, Italy
ibiTea Topic Outline
Advances in 3D Bioprinting for Tumor Microenvironment Modeling and Personalized Medicine
Our first speaker, Cristina Scielzo, will present a dynamic 3D bioprinted in vitro tumor model system to study the interaction of leukemia cells with their microenvironment.
Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL) is the most common adult leukemia in Western countries, but despite the availability of several targeted therapies, it remains incurable. The disease is characterized by the accumulation and trafficking of mature B cells between the peripheral blood and lymphoid tissues.
A deeper understanding of the intrinsic and extrinsic mechanisms of CLL pathogenesis is needed to enhance new therapies. Current preclinical 2D in vitro and in vivo models poorly represent the complex interactions between tumor cells and the microenvironment, which are crucial for CLL proliferation and resistance to therapies. The research group recently demonstrated the feasibility of using 3D bioprinting to increase CLL cell viability in vitro and successfully exploited this strategy to mimic the complexity of the lymphoid microenvironment.
Confocal fluorescence image of a 3D bioprinted CLL cell line expressing GFP (green) with human lymphoid fibroblast. The cells were stained for actin (Phalloidin, red) and the cell nuclei (DAPI, blue). Scale bar: 100 µm
Cristina Scielzo, PhD, is the Group Leader of the Malignant B cells biology and 3D modeling Unit in the Division of Experimental Oncology, IRCCS Hospital San Raffaele Milan, Italy. Her team is studying the leukemia/microenvironment interactions in response to therapies. They are developing new advanced 3D in vitro co-culture systems by prototyping a bench-top 3D bio-printer and dynamic growth in a bioreactor to recapitulate in vitro a proper lymphoid microenvironment.
Advancing Beyond 3D Bioprinting:
New Approaches for the Fabrication of Human Tissues for Disease Modeling
Our second speaker, Gianluca Cidonio, will present a cutting-edge microfluidic-based 3D bioprinting method for precise and reliable control of the material composition and cell organization, creating next-generation in vitro tissue models.
Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM) has greatly advanced with 3D bioprinting. In the field of TERM, well-established technologies offer precise printing of tissues with a single cell type. However, reproducing the complexity of natural tissues with varied cell populations and microenvironments is still challenging because state-of-the-art methods often fall short in incorporating diverse cells and biomaterials in a controlled way, limiting the creation of functional tissues like bone and cartilage. Moreover, traditional 3D bioprinting lacks the ability to guide cell behavior before deposition, affecting tissue development. This group introduces a new 3D bioprinting method utilizing microfluidic printheads for biomaterial and cell compartmentalization, creating density gradients that resemble osteochondral defects. This approach enables precise control of fiber diameter and material composition, organizing human stem cells into defined 3D layers with specific densities and enhancing cell differentiation during printing. Their findings suggest that this technique can generate complex cellular environments, overcoming conventional bioprinting limitations and paving the way for advanced TERM applications.
3D bioprinted human bone marrow stromal cells colonizing the surface of the lattice structure after 21 days of culture. Scale bar: 50 μm.
Dr. Gianluca Cidonio is an Assistant Professor (Researcher Tenure-Track) and Group Leader of the 3D Bioprinting lab at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering (DIMA) at the University of Rome La Sapienza. Dr. Cidonio is a research scientist and a bioengineer who graduated (BSc and MSc) in Biomedical Engineering from Sapienza University of Rome. He has worked for more than 10 years on developing new 3D bioprinting approaches for regenerating human tissues and disease modeling purposes. Presently, Dr. Cidonio is interested in pushing forward the boundaries of “what we can print with unique microfluidic-assisted approaches.”
