By Hannah Rose Mendoza
Sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between news about advances in medicine and the plot for a B movie horror film. The latest developments related to bioprinting are just that kind of material and yet they are part of what is actually happening as medicine and 3D printing technology continue to work together. Just this week, CELLINK and RoosterBio have announced a partnership that allows them to pool their complementary technologies and make Cellular Bioink Kits commercially available.
These kits will enable high-fidelity mixing and printing of living cellular constructs by combining RoosterBio’s stem cell systems with the universal bioinks that have been created by CELLINK. This combination provides the materials needed for a wide variety of commercial applications such as the creation of human tissue needed for research and testing. In fact, continued experimentation made possible through these materials could ultimately lead to the ability to create replacement organs for patients in need of a transplant.
These kits promise to simplify and streamline the process for bioprinting living cellular constructs, reducing the timeline for beginning biomaterial-stem cell research from years to just a few days. Obviously, cutting the preparatory time to a minimum means that more time is available to dedicate directly to research and also reduces the cost of the initial setup itself. These kits represent the first commercially available, plug-and-play living cellular bioinks and are widely available for both commercial and academic use.
