Animal cells contain all the information needed to form a tissue or an organ. Still, the correct expression of each step depends on the precise position of the cell in time and space during the organism's development.
Therefore, tissue engineering is an incredibly daunting task, as it is challenging to construct a matrix that mimics this complexity to promote the right expression patterns that lead to an artificial tissue with all the elements necessary for its viability and function (i.e., differentiated layers of cells, neural networks, vascularization).
Dr. Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago's Biomedical Engineering Laboratory, at Tecnológico de Monterrey, has been at the forefront of a novel strategy to add necessary complexity to 3D bioprinted tissue primers by using chaotic flows that can increase microlayering, improving interactions between cells, and thus, pointing towards a more realistic development and differentiation of the artificial organ.
Venezuelan Fellow Sofía Valentina Salazar Bigott visited Dr. Trujillo's lab to train in this technology and advance research on 3D bioprinting. Each step in this direction brings humanity closer to creating a sustainable offer of organs for transplants, precise models for drug testing, and affordable lab-grown meat, among other solutions to pressing problems.
Sofia's fellowship was also part of a collaboration with Dr. Jimmy Castillo of Universidad Central de Venezuela's School of Chemistry, where she returned with newly acquired knowledge and a strengthened collaboration network among Latin American academic institutions.
