3D bioprinting at the nanoscale may increase drug development efficiency

Nanoengineers at the University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego; CA, USA) have developed a 3D printer able to rapidly produce large quantities of custom biological tissues. It is hoped this will decrease drug development timelines and costs. With the new printer, 3D models of biological structures are first digitally designed, and may be drawn from patient medical scans, paving the way for personalized drug development based on patient tissue samples. The models are then sliced into 2D snapshots and transferred to millions of microscopic-sized mirrors, each of which are digitally controlled to project patterns of violet light. These...