Bioprinting

Will bioprinting technology accelerate work on the drug for COVID-19?

The COVID-19 pandemic is losing strength, but scientists are working intensively to develop effective drugs and a vaccine to protect against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. In their research, they use the latest technological achievements, including the bioprinting method. Researchers from 3D Bioprinting Solutions have implemented a method that will shorten the time it takes to introduce the drug to the market.

According to the standard procedure, medicinal substances usually have to successfully pass cell and living organisms (small animals) before they can be tested on humans. It is said, however, that soon 3D printing technology will allow much more efficient testing of new drugs. In the case of in-vitro models that can be used to test drugs and cosmetics, the development is intense and they are in the phase of shaping the final form of the method.

Researchers from 3D Bioprinting Solutions in their proprietary method use spherical cell aggregates or spheroids (created using the bioprinting method), which are infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 disease, and then are used to test medicinal substances on them. The advantage of their solution is the fact that they use spatial cell aggregates, whose reaction may differ from traditional two-dimensional cell substrates. As the authors of the method butchery, testing new drugs on three-dimensional cell cultures give more reliable results, similar to the reaction of the native tissue of the human body.

The company is actively involved in testing various antiviral drugs, but, as they themselves admit, working on the ongoing drug search project for COVID-19 is the biggest challenge so far.

Yusef Hesuani, co-founder of 3D Bioprinting Solutions, says his team is very proud of their efforts and the fact that their solutions can help overcome the pandemic faster. Their method supports specialists in the field of virology and pharmacology in the rapid and precise testing of antiviral drugs.

Source: www.centrumdruku3d.pl

Magdalena Przychodniak

Editor-in-Chief of the 3D Printing Center. A biomedical engineer following the latest reports on bioprinting and 3D printing in modern medicine.