3D bioprinting - Scalable Production of In Vitro Cultures for Leukaemia

There is an ongoing need for more representative in vitro models for disease models and drug testing in response to (i) an increasing focus on 3Rs, and (ii) the lack of predictive capacity of current in vitro models. At the end of 2022, the FDA explicitly stated for the first time that testing on animals was not a requirement in approving new drugs. Drug developers should use the best available models, whatever their form. This change in emphasis enhances the trend towards the development of better in vitro models.

More representative in vitro models may be spheroid, organoid, organ-on-a-chip, multiple organs on a chip, or many other formats, but they require positional control in the placement of different cell types relative to one another. As the models are developed for drug testing the need for technical and biological replicates, indications of dose response, and studies of drug combinations means that the number of cultures required is significant. Even a basic study can run to hundreds of cultures: these then become difficult to produce consistently within a reasonable timescale.

Key advantages that the Jetbio process has over competing technologies:

·      Rapid deposition rate

·      High cell densities, promoting realistic cell-cell and cell-matrix interaction

·      Ability to print on any substrate

Jetbio has patented bioprinting technology (the reactive jet impingement process, or ReJI) which can support the automated production of in vitro models which have multiple cell types held within a matrix. Cells can be “printed” within a hydrogel or in media into wellplates or specially designed cell culture vessels in order create accurate and repeatable cultures. The technology has been developed at Newcastle University over the past 10 years with research grants from EPSRC and Versus Arthritis, and Jetbio has been spun-out to commercialise the process.