Search for: All records

3D printing technology is able to produce personalized artificial substitutes for patients with damaged menisci. However, there is a lack of thorough understanding of 3D printing-enabled (3DP-enabled) meniscus transplantation and its long-term advantages over traditional transplantation. To help health care stakeholders and patients assess the value of 3DP-enabled meniscus transplantation, this study compares the long-term cost and risk of this new paradigm with traditional transplantation by simulation. Pathway models are developed to simulate patients’ treatment process during a 20-year period, and a Markov process is used to model the state transitions of patients after transplantation. A sensitivity analysis is also conducted to show the effect of quality of 3D-printed meniscus on model outputs. The simulation results suggest that the performance of 3DP-enabled meniscus transplantation depends on quality of 3D-printed meniscus. The conclusion of this study is that 3DP-enabled meniscus transplantation has many advantages over traditional meniscus transplantation, including a minimal waiting time, perfect size and shape match, and potentially lower cost and risk in the long term. 

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is important in the development of complex tissue structures for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. However, the materials used for bioprinting, referred to as bioinks, must have a balance between a high viscosity for rapid solidification after extrusion and low shear force for cytocompatibility, which is difficult to achieve. Here, a novel bioink consisting of poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) microgels prepared via off-stoichiometry thiol–ene click chemistry is introduced. Importantly, the microgel bioink is easily extruded, exhibits excellent stability after printing due to interparticle adhesion forces, and can be photochemically annealed with a second thiol–ene click reaction to confer long-term stability to printed constructs. The modularity of the bioink is also an advantage, as the PEG microgels have highly tunable physicochemical properties. The low force required for extrusion and cytocompatibility of the thiol–ene annealing reaction also permit cell incorporation during printing with high viability, and cells are able to spread and proliferate in the interstitial spaces between the microgels after the constructs have been annealed. Overall, these results indicate that our microgel bioink is a promising and versatile platform that could be leveraged for bioprinting and regenerative manufacturing. 

Solution-printable and flexible thermoelectric materials have attracted great attention because of their scalable processability and great potential for powering flexible electronics, but it is challenging to integrate mechanical flexibility, solution-printability and outstanding thermoelectric properties together. In particular, such an n-type thermoelectric material is highly sought after. In this paper, 2D TiS 2 nanosheets were exfoliated from layered polycrystalline powders, and then assembled with C 60 nanoparticles, resulting in a new class of flexible n-type thermoelectric materials via a concurrent enhancement in the power factor and a reduction in thermal conductivity. The resultant C 60 /TiS 2 hybrid films show a ZT ∼ 0.3 at 400 K, far superior to the state-of-the-art solution-printable and flexible n-type thermoelectric materials. In particular, such a thermoelectric property rivals that of single-crystal TiS 2 -based thermoelectric materials, which are expensive, difficult to synthesize, and unsuitable for solution printing. A solution of the C 60 /TiS 2 hybrid was also used as an ink for printing large-area flexible and spatial thermoelectric devices. An outstanding output power of 1.68 W m −2 was generated at a temperature gradient of 20 K. This work paves the way for flexible, solution-printable, high-performance thermoelectric materials for flexible electronics.