3D Bio-etching is here

[lacazette]

3D bio-etching of a complex composite-like embryonic tissue /June2015
http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/artic...0b#divAbstract

Morphogenesis involves a complex series of cell signaling, migration and differentiation events that are coordinated as tissues self-assemble during embryonic development. Collective cell movements such as those that occur during morphogenesis have typically been studied in 2D with single layers of cultured cells adhering to rigid substrates such as glass or plastic. In vivo, the intricacies of the 3D microenvironment and complex 3D responses are pivotal in the formation of functional tissues. To study such processes as collective cell movements within 3D multilayered tissues, we developed a microfluidic technique capable of producing complex 3D laminar multicellular structures. We call this technique “3D tissue-etching” because it is analogous to techniques used in the microelectromechanics (MEMS) field where complex 3D structures are built by successively removing material from a monolithic solid through subtractive manufacturing. We use a custom-designed microfluidic control system to deliver a range of tissue etching reagents (detergents, chelators, proteases, etc.) to specific regions of multilayered tissues. These tissues were previously isolated by microsurgical excision from embryos of the African claw-toed frog, Xenopus laevis. The ability to shape the 3D form of multicellular tissues and to control 3D stimulation will have a high impact on tissue engineering and regeneration applications in bioengineering and medicine as well as provide significant improvements in the synthesis of highly complex 3D integrated multicellular biosystems.


http://blogs.rsc.org/lc/2015/07/30/3...ching-is-here/

The emergence of 3D technology has enabled scientists to mimic the exact cellular environments and helped to provide better insights into the cell signalling, migration and differentiation in cells.
One of the ways of mimicking the cellular architectures is bio-etching which involves subtractive manufacturing. Bioetching of monolayers of cells in response to laser cuts or scratch assays is achieved by using 2D cell culture studies. But the actual biological systems such as tissues and organs are much more complex and cannot be mimicked using simple monolayers. For long time, scientists have been working on developing better technologies to address this problem. One of the ways to achieve this is 3D bio-etching.

William C. Messner et al. from Tufts University in a recent article in Lab on a Chip explain the utility of 3D bioetching technique to create and shape 3D composite tissues using a microfluidics based approach.The ability to shape the 3D form of multicellular tissues and to control 3D stimulation will have a high impact on tissue engineering and regeneration applications in bioengineering and medicine as well as provide significant improvements of highly complex 3D integrated multicellular biosystems."

3D bio-etching hair germs soon in clinical trial, mark my words