An Investigation on 3D Bio-Printed Scaffold Shape Fidelity Incubated in a Custom-Made Perfusion Bioreactor

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is a promising technique for creating patient-specific 3D scaffolds of tissues or organs. An appropriate culturing process is critical to confirm encapsulated and seeded cells’ excellent viability and proliferation into scaffolds materials. Traditional stagnant cell culturing methods don’t ensure entering medium inside areas or passing through the scaffolds. To resolve this issue, we developed a customized perfusion bioreactor to supply the growth medium dynamically to the encapsulated or seeded cells. Our custom-designed bioreactor improves the in vivo stimuli and conditions, which may enhance cell viability and proliferation performance. A design of a dual medium tank was utilized allowing the replacement of already-used medium without interrupting perfusion. Accommodating an array of cassettes in a newly designed perfusion chamber allowed a wide range of scaffolds with various size and shapers to hold. In this paper, we explored fluid flow response on scaffolds fabricated with various material compositions with different viscosities. We fabricated scaffolds following a 0⁰–90⁰ deposition pattern with 8% Alginate, 4% Alginate-4% Carboxymethyl Cellulose (CMC), and 2% Alginate-6% CMC incubated, allowing a constant fluid flow for various periods such as 1, 2, 4, and 8 hours. The change of scaffolds fabricated with multiple material compositions was determined in terms of swelling rate, i.e., change of filament width, and material diffusion, i.e., comparison of dry material weight before and after incubation. This comparative study can assist in application-based materials selection suitable for incubating in a perfusion bioreactor.