The demands of tissue engineering have driven a tremendous amount of research effort in 3D tissue culture technology and, more recently, in 3D printing. The need to use 3D tissue culture techniques more broadly in all of cell biology is well recognized, but the transition to 3D has been impeded by the convenience, effectiveness, and ubiquity of 2D culture materials, assays, and protocols, as well as the lack of 3D counterparts of these tools. Interestingly, progress and discoveries in 3D bioprinting research may provide the technical support needed to grow the practice of 3D culture. Here we investigate an integrated approach for 3D printing multi-cellular structures while using the same platform for 3D cell culture, experimentation, and assay development. We employ a liquid-like solid (LLS) material made from packed granular-scale microgels, which locally and temporarily fluidizes under the focused application of stress and spontaneously solidifies after the applied stress is removed. These rheological properties enable 3D printing of multi-cellular structures as well as the growth and expansion of cellular structures or dispersed cells. The transport properties of LLS allow molecular diffusion for the delivery of nutrients or small molecules for fluorescence-based assays. Here we measure viability of eleven different cell types in the LLS medium, we 3D print numerous structures using several of these cell types, and we explore the transport properties in molecular time-release assays.

Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting is an additive manufacturing process that utilizes various biomaterials that either contain or interact with living cells and biological systems with the goal of fabricating functional tissue or organ mimics, which will be referred to as bioinks. These bioinks are typically hydrogel-based hybrid systems with many specific features and requirements. The characterizing and fine tuning of bioink properties before, during, and after printing are therefore essential in developing reproducible and stable bioprinted constructs. To date, myriad computational methods, mechanical testing, and rheological evaluations have been used to predict, measure, and optimize bioinks properties and their printability, but none are properly standardized. There is a lack of robust universal guidelines in the field for the evaluation and quantification of bioprintability. In this review, we introduced the concept of bioprintability and discussed the significant roles of various physiomechanical and biological processes in bioprinting fidelity. Furthermore, different quantitative and qualitative methodologies used to assess bioprintability will be reviewed, with a focus on the processes related to pre, during, and post printing. Establishing fully characterized, functional bioink solutions would be a big step towards the effective clinical applications of bioprinted products.

To date, the fields of biomaterials science and tissue engineering have shown great promise in creating bioartificial tissues and organs for use in a variety of regenerative medicine applications. With the emergence of new technologies such as additive biomanufacturing and 3D bioprinting, increasingly complex tissue constructs are being fabricated to fulfill the desired patient-specific requirements. Fundamental to the further advancement of this field is the design and development of imaging modalities that can enable visualization of the bioengineered constructs following implantation, at adequate spatial and temporal resolution and high penetration depths. These in vivo tracking techniques should introduce minimum toxicity, disruption, and destruction to treated tissues, while generating clinically relevant signal-to-noise ratios. This article reviews the imaging techniques that are currently being adopted in both research and clinical studies to track tissue engineering scaffolds in vivo, with special attention to 3D bioprinted tissue constructs.

We report a systematic study of the magnetic properties in transition metals doped with WSe2 through the use of first principle calculations. The results demonstrate the possibility of generating long-range room temperature ferromagnetic interaction in WSe2 with the use of Mn and Fe doping. In the case of Fe, a percolation threshold is required for long-range ferromagnetism, whereas the long-range room temperature ferromagnetic interaction in Mn-doped WSe2 persists even at a low concentration (~5.6%). The ferromagnetism is mediated by the delocalized p states in the Se atoms, which couple antiferromagnetically with the spin-down a1 and e1 states in Fe doping through a correlated interaction. In Mn doping, the p states of Se tend to couple ferromagnetically with the 3d state of Mn, which stabilizes the long-range ferromagnetism between the Mn ions, although the short-range interaction is antiferromagnetic. In addition, the calculations indicate that Fe and Mn tend to configure at a high spin state, thus they possess much larger magnetic moments in WSe2 than when they are doped into other transition metal dichalcogenides. We also discovered a strong dependence of the exchange interaction on the dopants' spatial positions, distances, and concentrations, which alters the magnetic coupling from strong ferromagnetism to strong antiferromagnetism. These results can provide useful guidance to engineer the magnetic properties of WSe2 in future experiments.