The approach could revolutionize regenerative medicine, enabling the production of complex tissues and cartilage that would potentially support, repair or augment diseased and damaged areas of the body.

While bioprinting has advanced significantly over the last 15 years, the pursuit of morphological complexity and biological functionality in fabricated cellular constructs remains challenging. Criteria relating to the printing process, including cytocompatibility, the resolution of cell placement and structural complexity, and the maturation of biologically active tissues, must all be addressed if printed tissues are to play a major role in regenerative medicine. To date, no single fabrication approach has addressed the gamut of design challenge for synthetic cellularized structures, however progress has been made by appropriating a range of 3D printing methodologies, including extrusion, laser-induced forward transfer, and droplet-based ejection.