Professor Nam Seung-yoon's Team at National Pukyong University Develops Bio-printing Technology Based on Elasticity Measurement

World's First Success in Developing Bioprinting Technology
with Real-Time Elasticity Monitoring

On the 13th, Pukyong National University (President Sang-Hoon Bae) announced that the research team led by Professor Nam Seung-yoon of the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the School of Smart Healthcare developed a new bioprinting technology utilizing ultrasound elasticity monitoring.

Research team (Kim Garin, Park Sanghyuk, Yoon Changhan, Nam Seungyun). Provided by National Pukyong University

The joint research team, including Professor Nam Seung-yoon and Professor Park Sang-hyuk from the same department, as well as Professor Yoon Chang-han from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Inje University, succeeded for the first time in developing a technology that precisely measures the elastic changes of cell scaffolds in real time by using ultrasound shear waves during the bioprinting process.

Bioprinting is an advanced technology used for regenerating human tissues and developing artificial organs, but there are limitations in precisely evaluating the mechanical properties of the fabricated cell scaffolds in real time.

Since the elasticity of human tissues varies by location and cell growth and differentiation are greatly influenced by these mechanical properties, the development of technology to dynamically monitor them is essential.

Existing methods could only destructively verify mechanical properties before and after cell scaffold fabrication, making it difficult to capture dynamic changes during the bioprinting process. However, the technology developed by the research team has the advantage of non-destructively monitoring the elasticity and stability of the structure even during cell scaffold fabrication.

Elasticity monitoring-based bioprinting process and result images.

The research team published their study titled “Suspended bioprinting with in-situ elasticity monitoring using the assessment of shear wave phase velocity” in February in a top-tier international journal in the manufacturing field (IF 10.3, JCR top 5.8%).

Professor Nam Seung-yoon stated, “This research is expected to establish itself as a core technology for quality control and process improvement in the bioprinting field. In particular, by tracking mechanical property changes of the same sample over a long period in real time, it can reduce measurement errors and improve cost-effectiveness, contributing to innovative advancements in tissue engineering and biomaterials-related fields.”

This research was conducted with support from the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Human Implantable Biomaterials Technology Development Project (RS-2022-KH129323, Principal Investigator Professor Jung Eun-jae of Seoul National University Hospital) and other sources.

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