The objectives of this work are the development of the processes, materials, and tooling to
directly “3-D print” living, pre-seeded, patient-specific implants of spatially heterogeneous
compositions. The research presented herein attempts to overcome some of the challenges to
scaffolding, such as the difficulty of producing spatially heterogeneous implants that require
varied seeding densities and/or cell-type distributions. In the proposed approach, living implants
are fabricated by the layer-wise deposition of pre-cell-seeded alginate hydrogel. Although
alginate hydrogels have been previously used to mold living implants, the properties of the
alginate formulations used for molding were not suitable for 3-D printing. In addition to changing
the formulation to make the alginate hydrogels “printable,” we developed a robotic hydrogel
deposition system and supporting CAD software to deposit the gel in arbitrary geometries. We
demonstrated this technology’s capabilities by printing alginate gel implants of multiple materials
with various spatial heterogeneities, including, implants with completely embedded material
clusters. The process was determined to be both viable (94±5% n=15) and sterile (less than one
bacterium per 0.9 µL after 8 days of incubation). Additionally, we demonstrated the printing of a
meniscus cartilage-shaped gel generated directly from a CT Scan. The proposed approach may
hold advantages over other tissue printing efforts [5,9]. This technology has the potential to
overcome challenges to scaffolding and could enable the efficient fabrication of spatially
heterogeneous, patient-specific, living implants.Mechanical Engineerin