Prints

Two alginate copies of a branch of the right coronary artery, from MRI data, produced for Hinton et al. 2015 Science Advances

Alginate branch of right coronary artery with tips cut off, mounted for perfusion, produced for Hinton et al. 2015 Science Advances

Printing a collagen vascular block for Lee et al. 2019 Science.  Vascular blocks are simpler than freestanding vasculature, since there is low amounts of retraction required. and patency of the walls is reinforced by surrounding infill structures.

Perfusion of a vascular block requires a stereotax or fixture to hold the block in place during perfusion.  This one was printed from PLA and designed to allow for lighting using a microscope base.  Part of Lee et al. 2019 Science

Here is an example of the setup used when perfusing a block - a syringe pump delivers fluid by a rigid needle to the block immersed in a dish of clear buffer, mounted on an imaging platform with cameras and lighting.  Part of Lee et al. 2019 Science

Video showing perfusion - red dye in the blood simulant leaks out and contaminates the otherwise white collagen object.  In Lee et al. 2019 Science, this construct was cleared via refractive index matching and then reperfused to demonstrate the production of lifelike volumetric perfusion of a hierarchical vascular network.

Bottom of the generative collagen vasculature print from Lee et al. 2019 Science.

Example of a 3D scan of a developing mammary duct, and what I used as a target design for much of my thesis.  

Alginate mammary duct printed using the LVE. Sparse rectilinear pattern is visible on left of print. This geometry is a tree with no crossover between branches - all branches emerge from a central root on the left side of the image.  Handling this print is almost impossible, given it acts like a jellyfish and has an exceedingly low integrity.  Picture taken with print in a large dish of buffer, sitting on top of printer paper.  This was completed for RAPID 2017 as a display item.  10 cm across.

Test of collagen (white) printed with supporting alginate mesh (blue)

Collagen duct (white) printed with supporting alginate mesh (translucent).  M3x16mm bolt for scale.

Full complex collagen duct (white) and external supporting alginate (translucent).  This was the most complex print I have done, and I did it using a MakerBot Replicator 2 modified with a Duet motherboard and a pair of Replistruder v3 extruders.      

Alginate heart first printed in 2014 - scaled print of full MRI dataset, done for a demo.  Going full Atala here.

Tiny collagen heart printed in 2015, scaled print of full MRI dataset, done for a demo. 

Collagen heart printed in 2016, showing valves.

The collagen heart from Lee et al. 2019 Science, without barium sulfate contrast mixed into the ink.

Printer error resulted in a partial print of the barium sulfate heart from Lee et al. 2019 Science.  This made for a nice visual where we could "see" inside the later, complete heart.