ESA’s portfolio of ground-based facilities has been expanded to offer dedicated opportunities for research making use of 3D bioprinting and 3D cell culturing. The aim is to engage the scientific community in the pursuit and growth of new fundamental and applied research activities on ground to best prepare for experiments to be performed in space through ESA’s 3D bioprinter and 3D cell culturing facility that will be developed and installed on-board the ISS.
3D Bioprinters commonly use ‘bio-inks’ based on cells (mammalian, non-mammalian), the nutrients, and materials needed to grow human body tissues such as skin, bone, and cartilage, but also animal and plant cell constructs. Besides providing a useful research tool for studying 3D tissues, the possibility to 3D-print living cell constructs is now paving the way towards the production of patient-specific tissues and organs.
ESA will build a 3D Bioprinting and 3D cell culturing capability in Low Earth Orbit which will provide support for research and preparation activities to enable long-term human deep space exploration. More specifically, ESA is planning for the development of a 3D bioprinter and a 3D cell culturing system to be installed on-board the ISS, which will function as a research facility with in-situ capabilities for incubating, maturing, stimulating, and analysing the 3D bioprinted cell constructs.
ESA has identified a consortium of state-of-the-art 3D Bioprinting facilities across the ESA Member States. Interested science teams can request access to these facilities to perform their experiments, should they not have similar equipment/facilities available in their own lab or university.
Full proposals are due on 1 July 2022