3D Bioprinting

PPRI is partnering with the Michael Smith Health Research BC (Health Research BC) to co-fund an “Innovation to Commercialization” ( I2C) project that aims to improve health outcomes for patients suffering from neurological diseases, including Parkinson’s disease.

MSHRBC’s I2C program provides funding support to help researchers advance their discoveries or inventions towards practical application, resulting in products or technologies that improve health outcomes. Our co-funded project, entitled “3D Bioprinting Personalized Neural Tissues for Drug Screening,” will develop 3D bioprinting of personalized neural tissues as a tool for screening medications. Bioprinting can produce living human tissues on demand, which has the potential for medical breakthroughs in both drug screening and developing replacement tissues.

Principal investigator Dr. Stephanie Willerth has more than 16 years experience in biomaterials and tissue engineering. The Willerth lab was the first group in the world to use Aspect Biosystems’ cutting-edge RX1 bioprinter to bioprint neural tissues similar to those found in the brain using stem cells derived from healthy patients. Similar tissues can be printed using stem cells derived from patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease; these highly customized, physiologically-relevant 3D human tissue models can screen potential drug candidates as an alternative to expensive pre-clinical animal models.

This project will bioprint both healthy and diseased neural tissues using the Willerth lab’s novel bioink in combination with Aspect Biosystems’ novel trademarked Lab-on-a-Printer system and evaluate their function. These tissue models will then be validated as tools for drug screening by exposing them to compounds with known toxicity to brain tissues. To learn more about this project, you can view a presentation from Dr. Willerth here.

The partnership will be in place for two years, commencing 1 October 2019. The total award amount is $300,000. PPRI’s commitment, which is matched by Health Research BC, is $150,000 over two years. To support the continuation of this project, donate now.