"Development of Artificial Muscles for Rapid Bone and Blood Vessel Regeneration Using 4D Printing"

Korea Research Foundation, Professor Kim Geunhyung of Sungkyunkwan University and Joint Research Team

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bong-su] A technology has been developed that can create artificial muscles with faster regeneration speeds for bones and blood vessels through 4D printing, enabling more efficient healing of damaged parts of the human body.

The National Research Foundation of Korea announced on the 23rd that a joint research team led by Professor Kim Geun-hyung of Sungkyunkwan University developed a bioink-based cell scaffold capable of controlling cell alignment using 4D printing technology and confirmed its effectiveness in an animal model with muscle loss.

While conventional 3D printing had limitations in replicating the directionality of muscles, which are bundles of muscle fibers aligned in one direction, the research team developed 4D printing technology that enables self-shaping functions by utilizing various physical and chemical properties of materials in the 3D printed structures.

The research team succeeded in controlling the growth direction of human muscle progenitor cells included in the bioink using 4D printing technology. They transplanted a cell structure with self-alignment function into the tibialis anterior muscle of mice with fatal muscle loss the size of a finger (length 15mm, width 7mm, depth 3mm) and confirmed that the transplanted area regenerated like actual muscle after 8 weeks.

The key was optimizing printing conditions to control the alignment of synthetic polymers included in the bioink, producing muscle-mimicking structures aligned like muscle fiber bundles. This provided an optimal topographical and biological environment for muscle cells, enhancing muscle cell differentiation and regeneration effects. The cell survival rate of muscle progenitor cells included in the cell scaffold was also high (90%).

The research team expects that this technology can be applied not only to muscle tissue but also to other aligned tissues such as myocardial tissue, nerve tissue, and ligaments. In particular, they developed a cell scaffold to aid bone tissue regeneration using 4D printing technology and applied it to a spinal fusion mouse model, confirming the bone tissue regeneration effect. Unlike conventional bone graft materials that lack vascular connections, the cell scaffold with microchannel structures was designed to efficiently generate blood vessels in the tissues surrounding the transplant site.

The results of this study were published in the international journal of applied physics, Applied Physics Reviews, on the 4th (bone tissue regeneration) and the 12th (muscle regeneration) of this month, respectively.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.