Dr. Jay Hoying, Chief Scientist of Advanced Solutions is speaking at the AM Medical Summit Powered by ASME during the virtual event on October 28th and 29th. Before joining Advanced Solutions, Dr. Hoying was the Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Therapeutics at the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute (CII) and Professor in the Department Physiology at the University of Louisville. He has over 25 years of experience in basic and applied biological sciences research with a focus in tissue biology, tissue vascularization, and cell therapeutics. He received his Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Biology and Molecular Biology from Case Western Reserve University and his PhD in Cardiovascular Physiology, with an emphasis on the microcirculation, from the University of Arizona. Following this, Dr. Hoying served as a New Investigator in the National Institutes of Health Program of Excellence in Molecular Biology of the Heart and Lung (POEMB) in the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Cincinnati. He currently serves on the Editorial staff of two national scientific journals and reviews for several other national and international journals. Dr. Hoying reviews grant proposals for the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Affairs, the American Heart Association, and international funding agencies. In addition to his numerous published works, Dr. Hoying holds patents related to vascularizing tissues, related cell-based therapies, and tissue modeling; technologies that have been translated to companies. Dr. Hoying’s presentation at the AM Medical Summit will include the opportunity to ask questions about his research and development activities at Advanced Solutions. The AM Medical Summit is virtual conference featuring live interaction, face time with experts, and medical breakthroughs that will be revealed. Conference participants can watch any session live or watch sessions on-demand after the event. You can register for the AM Medical Summit here. Register now with promo code AMSP10 to get one of Dr. Hoying’s 10 free passes before they run out!

A recent article published in Materials Horizons by McGill University’s Mechanical Engineering department demonstrates a novel bioprinting method for creating tunable, porous, cell-laden scaffolds that are activated by physiological temperatures. As stated by the McGill team, “To realize this mechanism in bioprinting, the researchers prepared the bioink by suspending cells within a chitosan solution at a slightly acidic condition. The bioink can be printed into a pH-controlled supportive gelatin slurry with predefined shapes using BioAssemblyBot®.” This slurry or a phase-separation inducing matrix (PSIM) not only provides mechanical support to the printed material, but importantly contains compounds that chemically react with the porous viscoelastic hydrogel or PVH to form cell-sized pores in the scaffold. Next, the tissue model is heated up 37C which triggers micropore formation and strengthens the scaffold while melting away the support bath – resulting in a mechanically robust, biodegradable, and porous scaffold that is highly tunable to changes in pH without requiring the addition of crosslinking compounds or mechanisms, thereby enabling the fabrication of scaffolds that mimic more tissue-specific characteristics. Empowered by the six-axis bioprinting versatility of BioAssemblyBot®, the McGill team biofabricated small replicas of complex, porous human tissues including large vessels, intervertebral discs, kidneys, and vocal folds. “The bioprinting process and the resulting porous viscoelastic hydrogels (PVHs) are highly cytocompatible.” To further illustrate a key application of their TMF technology, the McGill team built multi-cellular scaffolds for vocal fold tissue engineering. Using TSIM® & BioAssemblyBot®, they designed and biofabricated a bilayer vocal fold construct out of human vocal fold fibroblasts (hVFFs) and human bronchial epithelial cells (hBEpCs) and found that the spreading of fibroblasts within the scaffold was substantially improved compared to non-porous hydrogels. The McGill team believes the TMF process will enable a new suite of bioprinting applications, since they can now tune certain structural and viscoelastic gradients for applications such as tissue repair, regenerative medicine, organ-on-chip, drug screening, organ transplantation, and disease modeling.

Advanced Solutions would like to congratulate Dr. Beth Ripley, National Director of the VHA 3D Printing Network, Department of Affairs, on winning the Science and Environmental Medal at the 2020 Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals. Dr. Ripley is a BioAssemblyBot power-user, who has been leading the call at the VA in fabricating customized replacement tissues for treating veterans. Dr. Ripley was honored with the award earlier this summer at a virtual event hosted by television’s Aisha Tyler, Criminal Minds, Whose Line Is It Anyway?. Tyler said, “Dr. Beth Ripley looked at 3D printing and saw so much more.” Michael Golway, CEO of Advanced Solutions, said “Dr. Ripley exemplifies what it means to give back to society and better the lives of veterans. We are proud to call her a BioAssemblyBot user and congratulate her on this great honor!” You can read more about Dr. Beth Ripley’s work and her award on the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals website.

For healthcare professionals treating trauma patients injured by explosions and burns, there can be significant clinical challenges. Patients who have had more than 60% of their body surface compromised do not have enough healthy skin remaining to be used for autologous transplant, and there are few viable alternatives to quickly cover, protect, and regenerate the burns. The French Ministry of Defense recently announced a project led by Dr. Christophe Marquette, Research Director at CNRS, who aims to develop a novel surgical technique assisted by 3D bioprinting in order to reconstitute and graft skin and cartilage for burn victims. Dr. Marquette and his team have invented a process for taking a patients’ own cells, expanding them, and then 3D bioprinting new tissues to be used as autologous grafts. His team takes full advantage of BioAssemblyBot’s six-axis contour printing capability to fill burn wounds based on 3D scan data. It starts with using TSIM® (Tissue Structure Information Modeling) to create the 3D architecture of the tissue to be repaired, which can be generated from the patient’s own medical image data. The BLOC-PRINT team takes a small biopsy from the patient, and proceeds to build them a personalized bioink containing human cells, ensuring compatibility with therapeutic use. The bioink is 3D bioprinted into a “tissue fabric” in vivo, where the cells self-organize until specific biological functions emerge. In ten days or so, the skin tissue can be fully reconstituted. This novel approach makes it possible to obtain tissues of complex shape, composition, and specific size in order to cover the large surface area of skin. The French Ministry of Defense stated “the originality of this project is the development of a robotic arm unique in the world (BioAssemblyBot®). It adapts perfectly to the patients’ morphology as well as the topology of the burn. BLOC-PRINT was a success: unprecedented results showed that it was possible to develop an implantable bioink which could allow skin reconstruction in-vivo.” Read the full article here.

3D bioprinted hydrogels have great potential for studying new therapies, as they better support cell-cell interactions than the standard 2D assays. The University of Texas El-Paso Inspired Materials & Stem-Cell Based Tissue Engineering Lab (IMSTEL) has identified that scaling up 3D bioprinting of hydrogels from small-scale, benchtop 3D bioprinters to high throughput biofabrication systems is one of the biggest challenges to translating tissue engineering research. The UTEP IMSTEL team has recently published a first-of-its-kind, scale-up study where they successfully translated 3D designs from a small benchtop bioprinter (Cellink’s BioX™) to a larger high-throughput bioprinting platform (BioAssemblyBot®, BAB). Using an alginate-gelatin bioink, the IMSTEL team bioprinted lattice, honeycomb, and fibrous bundle patterns on each bioprinting system to compare 3D scaffolds based on morphology, structural fidelity, and microstructure. These geometries were selected as they are standard designs for 3D printing of scaffolds for cardiac, bone, and ligament tissues. The team used Advanced Solutions’ TSIM® (Tissue Structure Information Modeling) software to optimize 3D bioprinting parameters and exported these first to BioX™ and later to BAB. They used morphological analysis and scanning-electron microscopes to comparatively analyze the structures printed on both platforms. The UTEP team found that prints from BAB had higher resolution, ultrastructural details, and improved crosslinking in comparison to prints from BioX™. The structures printed on BAB also demonstrated more structural stability (and less swelling) compared to the structures printed on BioX™. The authors also noted that they have no financial interests or personal relationships that might have influenced the work reported in this paper. Read the whole study here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matlet.2020.127382. Study Citation: Matthew Alonzo, Erick Dominguez, Fabian Alvarez-Primo, Amado Quinonez, Erik Munoz, Jazmin Puebla, Antonio Barron, Luis Aguirre, Ana Vargas, Jean M. Ramirez, Binata Joddar, A comparative study in the printability of a bioink and 3D models across two bioprinting platforms, Materials Letters, Volume 264, 2020, 127382, ISSN 0167-577X

Aniwaa, a leading tech hardware comparison platform focused on additive manufacturing and 3D scanning equipment, recently featured Advanced Solutions’ BioAssemblyBot in their comprehensive 3D Bioprinter Buyer’s Guide as one of the “Best Bioprinters in 2020.” The Buyer’s Guide is written to help technology enthusiasts and professionals find the right industrial 3D bioprinting system. The article’s author, Benedict O’Neill, provides immediate context for the audience by providing an exceptional definition of 3D bioprinting: “What is 3D bioprinting? 3D bioprinting is a process in which a machine called a 3D bioprinter is used to fabricate tissue structures that contain cells and an extracellular matrix. These structures can have uses in regenerative medicine, pharmaceutical testing, food production, and other areas. Like regular 3D printing, 3D bioprinting creates 3D shapes layer by layer using a digital CAD file as a blueprint. However, by 3D printing with cells instead of plastics and metals, bioprinting can create precisely engineered tissue structures such as 3D printed organs.” The article proceeds to help the user make an informed purchase decision, including a comparative study of the various bioprinters, describing the primary applications of 3D bioprinting, finally highlighting current limitations and regulations regarding 3D bioprinted tissues. We are honored that the team featured BioAssemblyBot in this article as well as its own product page & look forward to continued growth of the Aniwaa platform – check out the full Bioprinting Buyer’s Guide here.

In this article, Liz Brody writes about the extraordinary life of Dean Kamen, the inventor of the Segway, and how his new venture into human organ manufacturing utilizes Advanced Solutions BioAssemblyBot. "Advanced Solutions in Louisville KY, another ARMI member that has also opened a branch in the Millyard, is focused on the manufacturing side. 'BAB,' their BioAssembly Bot, 3D-prints human cells and has a six-axis robot arm that makes structures, holds tools, and does assembly. With BAB, engineers at Advanced Solutions have used cells from belly fat to create blood vessels, and they’re currently working on vascularizing a liver with another ARMI member. 'In a lot of cases we have moved beyond scaffolds,' says engineer and CEO Michael Golway. 'BAB is so flexible she really allows us to do design tissue structures in a way that we can add the cells, so that it can be 100% living.'" Read more on Medium.

Dr. Vahid Serpooshan, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics at Georgia Tech and Children’s Healthcare Atlanta, presents on recent innovations his team has made on bioprinting cardiovascular tissue. When discussing the biofabrication systems his team uses, Dr. Serpooshan first called attention to his BioAssemblyBot (BAB) “BAB is a six-axis robotic arm printer, one of the most sophisticated on the market. You can rotate different angles, it gives you high flexibility and robust manufacturing options for your tissue models.” To view the webinar, click here, then click the "VIEW THE WEBINAR RECORDING" midway down the page. Dr. Serpooshan's portion begins at the 31:52 minute mark of the recording.

Making human tissues with a bioprinter isn’t easy but imagine the long-term ability to develop safe therapies and repair injuries.  A new R&D partnership with Cytiva (previously GE Life Sciences) and Advanced Solutions will create an integrated product – GE’s IN Cell Analyzer for imaging, and the ASLS BioAssembly Bot, to allow life scientists and tissue engineers to quickly design, build and image living, vascularized 3D tissues in a single, agile, 3D-bioprinting process used to create human tissue models. Learn more about how the BioAssemblyBot works with the Cytiva IN Cell Analyzer.

BioAssemblyBot gives users the ability to easily scan-and-3D bioprint living cells and tissues on complex surfaces – with six-axis freedom. In this video, we demonstrated for a select customer how they could use BioAssemblyBot to 3D bioprint a proprietary cartilage bioink on a femoral head during hip implant procedures.

Advanced Solutions is constantly innovating our 3D bioprinting and 3D biofabrication tools for BioAssemblyBot. Check out one of our newest tools, the Dual Dispense tool. This 3D Bioprinting Tool enables the rapid printing of dual-material 3D tissue and cell models, utilizing 2 x 10cc syringe barrels. Print up to 16 different cell lines in one run with BioAssemblyBot.

BioAssemblyBot is a robotic platform used to build and assemble a variety of living and non-living structures and devices. Today it is used to produce tissues and tissue models for drug discovery, personalized medicine, and regenerative therapeutics. I just had a chat with its inventor, Michael Golway, CEO & Founder of Advanced Solutions. What differentiates BioAssemblyBot from other 3D bioprinters? Unlike traditional 3D bioprinters, BioAssemblyBot utilizes a freely moving robotic arm to print in multiple axes and perform additional tasks all related to tissue, tissue model, and soft device fabrication. Because of its ability to position a printhead or fabrication tool in six-axes of freedom, BioAssemblyBot can 3D print on or within complex surfaces and structures. Users are contour printing on 3D anatomical models, adding to existing tissue constructs, filling device cavities, printing within microfluidic devices and bioreactors, and injecting into 3D objects all with the high precision of a robotic arm. What kind of biomaterials can the device print out or print with? BioAssemblyBot can print any material that can be dispensed through a syringe in a temperature range of 0 to 110 Celsius. BioAssemblyBot empowers scientists to design, prototype, and manufacture complex tissue systems, including those involving solely living cells of various types without traditional scaffolding. In what situations do you think the device would be a helpful addition to a healthcare setting? BioAssemblyBot adds value to the healthcare setting through rapid prototyping and modeling of patient anatomy. “Patient-specific, 3D anatomical models are created from standard medical images like MRI’s and CT scans.” The handheld models provide surgeons both strategy and insight with certain operations that result in a better patient outcome (e.g. less surgery time, quicker recovery, etc.) and medical device developers a means to prototype and test new device designs. The goal for the BioAssemblyBot technology platform is to robotically build replacement human tissues for damaged or diseased body parts. The advancements for this next chapter are exciting and expansive in research labs across the globe today. Simple therapeutic tissues made from living human cells will begin to emerge for vascularized bone, tendon, ligament and cornea repair. Longer term, tissue 3D printing capabilities will grow to encompass complex applications for partial organ repair and eventual whole organ replacements in the body. Do you have case studies that show how useful the device can be? We are fortunate and humbled to work with some of the smartest scientists and bioengineers on the planet using the BioAssemblyBot technology platform to advance the field of regenerative medicine. A few case studies for consideration include Dr. Sean Wu at Standford, Dr. Christophe Marquette at the University of Lyon, Dr. Vahid Serpooshan at Georgia Tech, and Dr. Rohan Shirwaiker at NC State University (“New technique uses ultrasound to align living cells in 3D bioprinted tissues”). Further, our vascularization R&D lab in Manchester, NH is a global leader in understanding, building and repairing blood vessels. The team has decades of published work in this area that is now being applied to BioAssemblyBot 3D printing human tissues and tissue models in a variety of applications. Read more on The Medical Futurist Check out The Medical Futurist

In the May 12, 2020, ARMI/BioFabUSA Keynote Address, Advanced Solutions CEO & inventor of the BioAssemblyBot, Michael Golway, explores the possibilities of combining machine learning to automate cell analysis. This event was hosted by ARMI/BioFabUSA.

Join Dr. Lehanna Sanders from her home in Louisville, Kentucky as she demonstrates unique approaches to 3D bioprinting on her BioBot Basic system. Learn how to alter pore structure and density in 3D objects utilizing Advanced Solutions’ TSIM design software.

Learn more here: http://mikebiselli.com/2019/11/leading-the-3d-bioprinting-revolution/ Listen to the podcast here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/12-michael-golway-leading-the-3d-bioprinting-revolution/id1478801677?i=1000457108725

Advanced Solutions has been recognized by Frost & Sullivan for the Best Practices Award for Value Leadership in the 3D bioprinting market. Click here to see the full report.

VA researchers are working with collaborators to create a bioprinting program that uses 3D printing to fabricate replacement tissues that are customized to an individual patient. This would decrease wait times for tissues and in the more distant future, organs, reducing the need for grafting surgeries and enabling hospital and health care providers to improve the quality and safety of medical procedures. When asked about the system, Dr. Ripley stated “BAB is what we affectionately call her - it's our BioAssemblyBot. It's a bioprinter that can print anything that can come through a syringe - that means biomaterials, collagen, patient's own cells.” Click here to read more

Matthew Weitzman, Ph.D. an application specialist for confocal and multiphoton imaging systems at Olympus writes about the use of Angiomics isolated microvessels in his research. "By using Advanced Solutions Life Sciences’ Angiomics™ isolated microvessels to recapitulate native angiogenesis in vitro with the FV3000 confocal microscope, it’s clear that angiogenic neovessels (visualized via confocal fluorescence) reorganize the immediately adjacent collagen fibrils (visualized using reflectance imaging) as they grow through the 3D stromal environment." Read more on the Olympus Discovery blog >

3D Printing Media Network zoomed-in on GE Healthcare’s recent innovations and investments in additive manufacturing. A key focus was on GE Healthcare’s partnership with Advanced Solutions, bringing the BioAssemblyBot and IN Cell Analyzer together for an agile biofabrication workcell. “Even more recently, GE Healthcare made moves in the bioprinting sector as well. After signing a deal with Advanced Solutions Life Science, GE Healthcare will distribute the world’s first integrated 3D bioprinter + confocal scanner (BioAssemblyBot + GE IN Cell Analyzer 6500HS) as part of a strategic R&D and distribution partnership that sets out to personalize tissue regeneration. The integration of IN Cell Analyzer and BioAssemblyBot systems technologies will embed cellular-level assessments into the 3D bioprinting workflow used to create human tissue models. Read more.

BioAssemblyBot featured in opinion article describing intraoperative 3D bioprinting for repairing tissues and organs in surgery. Read more.

GE Healthcare Life Sciences said today that it has entered into a strategic R&D and distribution partnership with Advanced Solutions Life Sciences — with a goal of personalized tissue regeneration. The partnership with Advanced Solutions Life Sciences is the latest in a string of investments and partnerships that GE Healthcare (NYSE:GE) has been making to further a wide array of medtech innovation — from 3D printing to robot-assisted surgery to artificial intelligence to digital health. Read more Update: GE Healthcare Life Sciences is now Cytiva.

The world's first integrated 3D bioprinter + confocal scanner (BioAssemblyBot + GE IN Cell Analyzer 6500HS) Strategic R&D and distribution partnership aims to advance the field of 3D biofabrication. Printed cells with vascularization would be first step toward more complex biological structures for bone, soft tissue, and organ replacements. The partners will create an integrated and agile way to print cells using cellular imaging and six-axis digital biofabrication. MARLBOROUGH, MA. and LOUISVILLE, KY. – December 8, 2019 – GE Healthcare Life Sciences and Advanced Solutions Life Sciences (ASLS) will enter into a strategic R&D and distribution partnership that sets out to personalize tissue regeneration. The integration of IN Cell Analyzer and BioAssemblyBot® systems technologies will embed cellular-level assessments into the 3D-bioprinting workflow used to create human tissue models. Continue reading on GE Newsroom

Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) is a well-known and widely used viscoelastic biomaterial with applications across the tissue engineering and biomedical fields. In general, its use thus far has been limited to applications wherein casting or molding are possible. Advanced Solutions demonstrates how PDMS bioprinting with its BioAssemblyBot to create complex shapes potentially useful in a variety of applications. Read more.

Dr,. Jay Hoying, Chief Sceintist, presents at the American Institute of Chemical Engineers' World Summit in 2019. A crucial step for islet organoid engineering is the controlled aggregation of the varying cell types into a 3-D spheroid morphology. Our lab has developed methods for controlling heterotypic (different cell types), spheroid aggregation of human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC) -derived pancreatic endocrine cells and endothelial cells. Additionally, we have had promising results in forming an intra-vascular network in the hPSC derived cells. The intra-vascular network was reproduced by aggregating hPSC derived pancreatic endocrine cells, adipose-derived microvascular fragments, and stromal cells. During this experimentation, the formation of the neo-vascular network has found to be sensitive to the phenotype of the hPSC-derived cell population and the culture media, wherein media was adjusted to promote angiogenesis while maintaining endocrine differentiation. Read more.

ASLS Business Development Manager Dr. Lehanna Sanders shares her insights on the 3D bioprinting industry in this one-on-one discussion with 3D HEALS founder Dr. Jenny Chen. Read more.