Additive at Penn State

Presented by: Amir Sheikhi - Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering - Penn State

Topic: Additive manufacturing of granular hydrogel scaffolds for tissue engineering and regeneration

ABSTRACT
Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting of granular hydrogels comprising discrete hydrogel microparticles (microgels) may overcome the intrinsic structural limitations of bulk (nanoporous) hydrogel bioinks. The additive manufacturing of granular scaffolds has predominantly relied on highly jammed microgels to render the particulate suspensions shear yielding and extrudable. This inevitably compromises void spaces among microgels (microporosity), defeating rapid cell penetration, facile metabolite and oxygen transfer, and cell viability. Here, we describe how we have overcome this persistent bottleneck via interfacial programming of microgels. This work opens new opportunities for the 3D bioprinting of tissue engineering microporous scaffolds beyond the traditional biofabrication window.

BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Amir Sheikhi founded the Bio-Soft Materials Laboratory (B-SMaL) at Penn State in August 2019 to tackle some of the quintessential challenges of the 21st century in biomedicine and the environment by designing novel bio-based soft material platforms via micro- and nanoengineering techniques. Amir’s lab consists of 10 graduate students, 1 post-doc, and more than 15 undergraduate researchers, which is supported by more than $1.5 M of funding, including an NIH R01 grant. Amir’s research has been featured in more than 60 publications, 40 seminars, and 11 reports of invention/patent applications with recognition by over 40 news media outlets. He is the recipient of several major awards, including the AIChE’s 35 Under 35, The 2022 ACS Unilever Award for Outstanding Young Investigator in Colloid & Surfactant Science, The John C. Chen Young Professional Leadership Scholarship, UNIFOR Global Research Fellowship. Recently, Amir was named as one of the 9 emerging leaders in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering worldwide, featured on the cover of the Inaugural “Futures” Issue of Bioengineering & Translational Medicine journal.