BRIGHTER project near completing printing device for human skin

BRIGHTER is an EU-financed research project that aims to develop a novel bioprinting technology that will be used to produce tissue samples that mimic biological tissue with embedded three-dimensional structures.
The viability of a cell depends crucially on the mechanical, chemical and geometric properties of its environment, and so the process of bioprinting is an extraordinarily precise endeavor.
Creating such an environment requires liquids or gels that solidify precisely where you illuminate them with a focused laser beam. However, these materials must not be harmful to the cells and the whole process has to happen extremely quickly.
By incorporating Mycronic’s high resolution, high-speed, lithographic semiconductor printing technology, which uses light to print tiny patterns on silicon and is used in its advanced mask writers, the BRIGHTER project has developed a new technology making high resolution compatible with high throughput in the bioprinting process.
The hydrogel is exposed to a thin laser light sheet which leads to the formation of branched chain structures (polymers) that serve as a matrix for colonization by living cells.