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The Biomaterials Lab Annual Report

September, 2019

Executive Summary

In this report, we cover the second full year of the Biomaterials Lab’s operations. The Lab has hosted and participated in a variety of activities. We continue to use the annual report as a benchmark to measure each year’s successes as we expand our research, education, and outreach initiatives. Our goal is to maintain an open dialogue with university administrators, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders along with students and users of the Lab. The insight we gain from this feedback guides the development of the Lab as both a physical space and that of a center of expertise. In this way, we hope to collaboratively develop the Biomaterials Lab research, education, and outreach programs. This report also provides an introduction to the Lab’s resources and involvement in workshops, seminars, and community engagement. Finally, future directions of the Lab are also presented.

You can learn more about our current activities at: https://bml.rice.edu

A.G. Mikos, Director A.J. Melchiorri, Associate Director

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The Biomaterials Lab supports a wide array of training, education, and research opportunities. Much of this is only possible because of Rice's investment into the advanced and unique technologies available at the Biomaterials Lab.

Laboratory Mission and Vision

The Biomaterials Lab is dedicated to improving patient health and overcoming medical challenges through the development and support of biomaterials research, education, and entrepreneurship. Tools, training, and support are provided to students at all levels, faculty, staff, and collaborators at Rice University and the surrounding community. The Lab houses training programs and equipment needed to fabricate and characterize materials, enhancing biomaterials-related activities including developing regenerative medicine techniques, designing devices, and building prototypes.

The Lab aims to:

• Enable fabrication and characterization of novel biomaterials-related technologies • Provide unique, cutting-edge resources to students at all levels so they may pursue their

biomaterials-related research and innovation interests • Stimulate interdisciplinary collaborative research by providing core biomaterial facilities to Rice

University, the surrounding Texas Medical Center community, industry partners, and other inter-institutional partners

• Train individuals and foster education in biomaterials fabrication and characterization techniques for professional and scientific development

Introduction

Last year, the Biomaterials Lab officially opened as part of the inaugural annual Biofabrication Workshop on February 26, 2018. Since then, we have focused on developing a variety of educational and training

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programs. Several are new this year, such as our undergraduate research experiences, and others are expansions of programs established last year including our high school internship program and Biofabrication Workshop. We continue to seek new ways to expand our user base and support new research collaborations to increase Rice University’s reputation as a leader in biomaterials research.

Research Activities

Research Support

There are a total of 1215 active users on Rice University’s Facility Online Manager as of September 12, 2019, which includes the Shared Equipment Authority and the Rice Electron Microscopy Center. Of these, 90 are active users of the Biomaterials Lab. The Lab at its most basic function provides cutting edge equipment and the training to use that equipment. Often the Lab’s research support extends beyond those responsibilities. Lab personnel meet with prospective users to discuss their research goals and provide advice on which equipment would best suit their needs. Lab members also frequently have discussions with researchers about biomaterials in general, recommending methods and materials to fabricate everything from drug delivery devices to bone prosthetics and bioreactors. These facility users have come from across Rice University, other research institutions, and Houston-area startups.

In addition to supporting projects onsite, the Lab has found other ways to aid in research. Given our expertise in several areas of biomaterials fabrication and characterization, the Lab provides support as a service center. Super users and other Lab personnel have gained a wide array of experience operating 3D printers and imaging equipment to support research in various fields including mechanical engineering, cancer biology, and earth sciences.

The Lab is also directly involved in several research pursuits in conjunction with grants and institutions that the Lab is part of. We are an active partner in the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH’s) Center for Engineering Complex Tissues (CECT), a joint Biomedical Technology Resource Center led by the University of Maryland, Rice University, and Wake Forest School of Medicine’s Institute for Regenerative Medicine. The CECT aims to grow the 3D printing and bioprinting community, and the Biomaterials Lab helps lead the CECT’s efforts in bioprinting for complex tissue engineering scaffold fabrication. A host of other universities and institutions have also partnered with the Biomaterials Lab and

Professional and manufacturer-grade equipment, such as the electrospinning device here, prepare students and researchers for careers in industry as well as assisting their academic research.

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the CECT to pursue biofabrication-based research including the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Texas at Austin, Case Western University, and MD Anderson Cancer Center, among others.

The Biomaterials Lab is also part of the Regenerative Medicine Development Organization (ReMDO). This program aims to develop a universal library of biomaterials and bioinks that can be used with a variety of biofabrication equipment. Partnering with ReMDO and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, the Biomaterials Lab hopes to provide a

thoroughly researched and validated library of material and methods accessible to anyone in the field. To ensure the clinical application of this research, the Biomaterials Lab and ReMDO collaborate with nearly thirty companies actively interested in commercialization and dissemination of these technologies to research institutions and clinics.

Other collaborative research projects involving the Biomaterials Lab and Rice faculty include guest-host hydrogels for 3D printing applications, emulsion-templated scaffolds with hierarchical structure, and 3D direct-write electrospinning of scaffolds for osteosarcoma imaging techniques.

Over thirty research groups at Rice have users that have taken advantage of the Biomaterials Lab’s facilities. These groups include those of: Pulickel Ajayan, Andrew Barron, Caleb Bashor, Lisa Biswal, Will Clifton, Zachary Cordero, Rebekah Drezek, Eilaf Egap, Benjamin Fregly, Melodie French, Jane Grande-Allen, Helge Gonnermann, Jeff Hartgerink, Caleb Kemere, Qilin Li, Jun Lou, Matthew Jones, Kevin McHugh, Antonios Mikos, Jordan Miller, Carolyn Nichol, Matteo Pasquali, Jacob Robinson, Junghae Suh, Ned Thomas, Tomasz Tkaczyk, James Tour, Rafael Verduzco, Omid Veiseh, Aryeh Warmflash, Han Xiao, and David Zhang

Departments at Rice University using the Biomaterials Lab include: BioSciences; Bioengineering; Chemistry; Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences; Electrical and Computer Engineering; Material Science and Nanoengineering; and Mechanical Engineering.

A student shows tissue engineering scaffolds printed on a microscope slide using a novel method of fabrication to produce microscale features that are the size of cells.

A researcher prepares to take a micro-computed tomography (microCT) scan of an experimental sample. The microCT has proven to be one of the Lab's most popular methods of characterization, used by a variety of researchers from earth sciences and chemical engineering to bioengineering and medical devices.

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External institutions also have active research projects utilizing Biomaterials Lab instruments. Non-profit/academic institutions include University of Texas Health Scienter Center of Houston, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute, Texas Heart Institute, University of Houston, University of Texas at Arlington, University of Texas at Austin, and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Several companies are also pursuing biotech research within the Lab, including student startups, BioLife4D, the Secant Group LLC, VenoStent Inc, and Volumetric.

Collaborative Support

The Biomaterials Lab offers a small grant and scholarship program to support new collaborative projects between Rice University researchers and collaborators elsewhere. The intent of the program is to foster synergistic relationships with external organizations in the pursuit of biomaterials research. Currently the Lab supports twenty-one ongoing collaborative projects between Rice University labs and other research programs and institutions. These projects include topics such as developing novel bioinks for cartilage and bone engineering to electrospinning polymer networks with high school teachers on a summer research experience.

Training and Educational Outreach

Professional Training

The Biomaterials Lab strives to provide training to individuals from academic, non-profit, and commercial backgrounds interested in biomaterials research. Our most common form of professional education is equipment training. We are open to training individuals at all stages of research, from undergraduate students to faculty members, providing one-on-one and group sessions. Training includes basic introductions to using the instruments and, where applicable, some of the underlying theory behind the equipment.

We have also happily assisted researchers from other institutions when they are investigating purchasing biomaterials-related equipment. For example, we hosted two graduate students from the University of Texas A&M who were part of a new bioengineering lab. We provided them with an introduction to all the 3D printers in our labs, taking them through the advantages and disadvantages of each.

This type of hands-on experience is greatly beneficial to the field. Very few universities have access to the variety of advanced 3D printers that we have in the Lab. When budding researchers taking their first foray in the field have a chance to try each of the printers hands-on in one environment, it provides them a more solid experience to decide which 3D printers and biofabrication devices are right for them. It means more researchers can make better choices, advancing their own research without wasting money and time on equipment that does not support their goals.

These connections have proven fruitful in our research as well. We continue to interact with researchers that have visited for this type of training. Not only does this save them from spending excess research funding and ensures other labs can help synergistically advance this field, but we have formed

Two students prepare a computer-aided design for 3D printing in preparation for a laboratory workshop.

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collaborative relationships from these experiences. The two students from Texas A&M later attended the 2019 Biofabrication Workshop, and we maintain contact to troubleshoot bioprinting ideas and experiments together.

Other such visits have resulted in active research collaborations, such as the partnership the Biomaterials Lab has created with Case Western University’s Center for Multimodal Evaluation of Engineered Cartilage (CMEEC). We hosted professors from Case Western interested in integrating 3D printing technologies into their research. We taught them how to use the Lab’s printers and discussed the benefits/drawbacks of each. By sharing our knowledge of these technologies, we are now currently spearheading several new research projects with the CMEEC.

Over the past year, we have participated in a variety of workshops and courses aimed at professionals in the field. For example, on May 31, 2019, we provided a tour and 3D printing

demonstrations as part of the Texas Biomaterials Day sponsored by the Society for Biomaterials.

The Biomaterials Lab was a partner in the annual Advances in Tissue Engineering short course held on August 14 – 17, 2019. In conjunction with the CECT, we hosted a day devoted to bioprinting and fabrication techniques. The Lab also offered tours and hands-on demonstrations of 3D printing and biomanufacturing techniques to course attendees.

We hosted our first annual Biofabrication Workshop on February 26, 2018. Over thirty individuals from around the Houston area attended, with some attendees coming from as far away as Boston. This year, we expanded the Biofabrication Workshop and nearly fifty individuals attended the second annual workshop on February 27, 2019. We secured external support to help host more intensive hands-on bioprinting training during the afternoon and extended the speakers’ roster to include more advanced techniques in the field. Dr. Helen Lu of Colombia University delivered a keynote address examining the biofabrication of interfacial tissues.

We have also established a YouTube channel for those who are unable to attend our workshops or physical laboratory space in person: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNrQAFBcFz3kA_-_2JUuuKQ This channel includes the lectures we presented at the first Biofabrication Workshop.

We have also given 42 invited talks, presentations, and honorary lectures regarding Biomaterials research at conferences, universities, and institutions nationally (California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, South Carolina, and Washington) and internationally (China, Greece, Japan, the Netherlands, and Taiwan). This past year, we also co-chaired a special session dedicated to advanced techniques in bioprinting and biofabrication at the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society World in Kyoto in September.

Attendees of the Biofabrication Workshop get a hands-on opportunity to learn how to bioprint tissue engineering biomaterials.

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This summer, we hosted several undergraduate students who pursued research with graduate student mentors within the Biomaterials Lab. These three students came from Rice University, Wake Forest University, and the University of Texas at Austin. The Biomaterials Lab has also partnered to support an undergraduate research experience at Baylor College of Medicine’s Surgical Innovation and Technology Center. We provide training, consultation, and supervision of the use of 3D printing technologies for visiting undergraduate researchers. Throughout the year, we regularly train and aid undergraduate researchers in their work, whether it be through research as part of a

summer experience or a longer-term position with a Texas Medical Center lab.

The Biomaterials Lab will participate in the 2020 Advances in Tissue Engineering short course, and we will also host the 3rd annual Biofabrication Workshop in the winter of 2020. Currently, we are in talks with the CECT to develop our summer undergraduate research experience for undergraduate program.

Educational Outreach

The Biomaterials Lab supports a variety of educational outreach programs. We host regular tours and talks with individuals from a broad array of backgrounds. This includes middle school, high school, and university students. We have also welcomed teachers of all grades, visiting academics, and professionals interested in biofabrication and biomaterials. We often host at least one such event each month, with some busier months hosting as many as four or five educational programs.

Through all these opportunities, we provide an introduction to biomaterials research and demonstrate how various tools in our lab impact biomedical research and, as a result, healthcare on a much broader level. These tours and talks often have different focuses depending on our audience. For example, for high school students, we introduce them to biomaterials-based research topics and, importantly, have conversations with them about how they can get involved in research, engineering, and medicine. For teachers, we explore biomaterials research taking place in the lab, from 3D printed prosthetics to tissue engineering scaffolds, and discuss with them how to integrate these topics into their curriculum. These conversations often lead to return visits with other students and groups interested in learning more about the field. Groups we have worked with

High school students get a chance to see how a graduate student used biomaterials to fabricate engineered tissues in a laboratory tour.

A graduate student and an undergraduate student work together on characterizing a biomaterial in the Lab using rheology.

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to coordinate these programs include the Houston Academy for International Studies, I-Ride STEM Academy, Clear Creek ISD High School, Awty International School, Gulf Coast Consortium, the Health Museum, Sigma Xi National Research Honor Society, and more.

We expanded on last year’s high school student internship program with a week-long experience from June 17 – 21, 2019 at the Lab. Nine high school students from the Awty International School, Tomball High School, and Seven Lakes High School attended. As before, their keystone project was the independent 3D printing and assembly of usable prosthetic hands. They also learned how to perform experiments with 3D printing equipment, microscopy, and micro-computed tomography. This year, students were provided a new task: design their own biomaterial-based osteochondral scaffolds for tissue engineering. Divided into three teams, the students selected printable materials, created computer-aided designs, and fabricated their creations in the Biomaterials Lab with the help of graduate student mentors. The

students commented very positively on their tenure in the Lab. Many stated that it has helped them explore options for future careers and cemented in them a desire to perform biomedical research.

The Health Museum hosted a Faces of Innovation: Global Teen Medical Summit week-long camp in July for high school students, and the Biomaterials Lab again supported a half-day program as part of the summer camp. Students visited the Biomaterials Lab and were given an introduction to the use of 3D printing in medicine. They also visited the Rice 360o Institute for Global Health. Throughout the week, the Biomaterials Lab helped guide students’ 3D computer-aided designs and 3D-print those designs for their final presentations at the end of the program.

Also during July, the Biomaterials Lab again partnered with the Health Museum to provide a half-day program for high-school students visiting Houston from Mexico City as part of the Museum’s Innovation Days (described more extensively in the Supplementary Information). We provided laboratory demonstrations and introductions to 3D printing and biomaterial-based technologies. In addition, the event was capped off by a question and answer career session with four panelists from various scientific and medical backgrounds. Several students commented they were happy to learn so much about the biomaterials field and careers and opportunities they hadn’t previously known existed.

High school students 3D print, assemble, and test prosthetic hands, such as the one pictured here, as part of the summer internship program.

A graduate student explains the technology behind digital light projection fabrication and how this 3D printing technique is used at the Biomaterials Lab during a local high school visit.

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In order to promote cross-disciplinary education, we gave a seminar for architecture students on the relationship between porosity and bone tissue engineering. A major component of this presentation included demonstrations of how we use 3D printers in our research. We discussed the overlap between our two fields and how we can work together to solve common issues in design, whether it be the architecture of a building or a bone tissue scaffold. This partnership continues to develop and we will be presenting a joint seminar on Porous Matter: Rethinking Building Technologies on September 17, 2019 as part of the Scientia Lectures series open to the public.

Entrepreneurial Activities

With the rich infrastructure and recent investments made in the Texas Medical Center to support the startup community, Houston is poised to be a center for biomedical innovation. The Biomaterials Lab continues to support entrepreneurial activities by providing consulting, equipment, training, and education for those interested in creating new biomedical technologies. Already the Lab has supported the work of graduate students prototyping and developing novel devices for early stage startups. The Lab has also aided cutting edge technological research in larger companies like Secant Group and BioLyfe4D as both a service center and training center for industry researchers. In addition, the Lab has entered in collaborative agreements with companies like Advanced Solutions Life Sciences and Nordson EFD to provide input on future designs of 3D printers and printable biomaterials. The Lab’s work with ReMDO has enabled our organization to work in conjunction with nearly thirty companies, ranging from 3D printer manufacturers to large-scale pharmaceutical corporations in the design of universal bioinks for specific tissue types. Another seven companies are expected to join in this collaborative, ground-breaking research over the next several months.

Financial Support

We plan to supplement the Lab’s funds and resources through external grant applications. Current, external funding includes the 2017 $6.25 million award to establish the Center for Engineering Complex Tissues between Rice University, the University of Maryland, and Wake Forest. The Biomaterials Lab and the Mikos Research Group represent the Rice University partners of the CECT. The Biomaterials Lab is also part of the $20-million-dollar Regenerative Medicine Development Organization to advance manufacturing technologies in regenerative medicine. We have been awarded $600,000 to support the development of tissue-specific universal bioinks to be used on various bioprinting platforms. The Lab is currently supporting several ongoing proposal efforts to secure funding from organizations such as the NSF and the NIH.

High school students learn from a post-doctoral fellow how to use an advanced 3D printing technique called melt-electrospinning writing. Very few laboratories in the world have access to such printing technologies, and the Lab is proud to share this technology with researchers and students of all ages.

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Future Outlooks

One of our goals is to increase the user base over the next year. To accomplish this, we have participated in several Gulf Coast Consortium events to introduce the capabilities of the Lab. We also hosted a lunch seminar with the Shared Equipment Authority’s help to introduce graduate students and post-doctoral researchers to the Biomaterials Lab. This year, we will host another lunch seminar and pursue more partnerships with local research institutions to increase the community’s awareness of the Biomaterials Lab. We aim to create a more formalized undergraduate research experience to ensure junior researchers have ample opportunity to participate in the cutting edge work performed here. With the success of our education programs, we’ll continue to host the bioprinting day of the ATE short course and our annual Biofabrication Workshop. We will also continue to support outreach programs such as routine tours and our partnership with the Health Museum. Other goals include leveraging the Biomaterials Lab for increased financial support in our ongoing proposal submissions. As we increase our presence in the Texas Medical Center community and the international biomaterials field, we are confident we are on the path to making Rice University a preeminent name in biofabrication and biomaterials innovation.

Equipment

The equipment in the Biomaterials Lab can be divided into two primary purposes: Characterization and Fabrication. Equipment in the Characterization category is primarily used to analyze the properties of materials, ranging from attributes such as viscosity and molecular weight to bulk morphology and internal physical features. Fabrication equipment includes machinery and tools equipped to create and develop everything from electrospun materials to medical device prototypes and tissue engineering scaffolds.

In regards to characterization equipment, the Lab contains Waters Aquity Advanced Perfusion Chromatography (APC) and Ultra Performance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC) systems. The APC enables size-based chromatography and polymer characterization, useful for assessing attributes such as molecular weight. The UPLC system is capable of performing analytical chemistry experiments. A fraction collector has also been added to the system to enable peptide purification in response to demand from our user base along with size-exclusion chromatography. The Lab’s TA Instruments DSC 250 enables differential scanning calorimetry and photocalorimetry which is useful for detecting attributes such as crystallization temperature. For rheology, the Lab has a TA Instruments Discovery Hybrid Rheometer-2, capable of rheological analysis with attachments such as UV curing chamber and a humidity chamber to prevent evaporation of samples. A SkyScan 1272 micro-computed tomography device provides up to sub-micron resolution three-dimensional scans of non-living samples enabling high-fidelity morphological analysis and distribution of components within multimaterial composite samples. Finally, the Lab has a Nikon Ti2-U microscope capable of fluorescent, bright field, and phase contrast imaging, with full color and monochromatic cameras in addition to an enclosed environmental chamber.

The Biomaterials Lab is equipped with a wide variety of 3D printers capable of printing anything from sterilizable medical tools and device prototypes to living soft tissues for experimentation and drug testing. The fused deposition model of a skull taken from a medical image above is just once example of the applications suitable for the Lab.

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For fabrication, the Lab has a variety of devices capable of producing everything from plastic prototypes to artificial tissues containing cells or other bioactive factors. The YFlow Professional Electrospinning Machine provides environmentally (humidity and temperature) controlled settings for electrospinning with precise touchscreen controls over all attributes, ranging from the voltage source to the syringe pumps. A variety of collection mechanisms are available as well various needles (uniaxial, coaxial, and triaxial) and microencapsulation/microspraying heads. A suite of fusion-deposition modeling printers is available including two Stratasys uPrint SE Pluses and a Stratasys Dimension Elite, capable of printing with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastics—common thermoplastic polymers. A much larger Stratasys Fortus 450mc is available and can print with a variety of materials ranging from basic ABS plastics to electronics-insulating plastics and materials capable of being autoclaved/ethylene oxide sterilized. The FormLabs Form 2 is a stereolithography printer capable of high-resolution prints with standard acrylics as well as materials suitable for sterilization and cell/tissue-contacting surfaces. Similarly, an EnvisionTEC Perfactory 3DSP is available for printing biocompatible materials and high-resolution devices as well as custom materials synthesized by users. The EnvisionTEC Bioplotter enables extrusion printing of up to five materials at high and low temperatures enabling printing of everything from thermoplastics to cell-containing hydrogels. The RegenHU 3DDiscovery also is capable of printing thermoplastics through extrusion and has an additional coaxial print head enabling coaxially extruded fiber printing. Additionally, the 3DDiscovery has a direct-write

electrospinning head which enables precise printing of fibers with diameters of 10-40 microns compared to fibers of ~200-500 microns by other extrusion printing methodologies. A CellInk BioX also provides a standalone, sterile environment for printing cell-containing materials. An Allevi 3 has been added as an alternative 3D bioprinting for beginners in the 3D printing field, and a more advanced BioAssembly Bot has been purchased (expected in October 2019) to provide far more complex fabrication and bioprinting techniques.

Team

Director – Antonios G. Mikos, Ph.D.

Dr. Mikos is the is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University. He is the Director of the National Institutes of Health Center for Engineering Complex Tissues. He oversees the global direction of the Biomaterials Lab and its research programs.

Associate Director – Anthony J. Melchiorri, Ph.D.

Dr. Melchiorri is the Associate Director of the Biomaterials Lab. He oversees the Lab’s educational and training programs, facilities, and day-to-day operations.

Super Users

These high-resolution models of a heart and a trachea were produced using one of the lab's 3D printers. Such advanced printers allow researchers unparalleled opportunities to produce devices for cell studies with microscale features and models of organs, such as those produced from a medical image above, to use in education or even surgical pre-planning.

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The Biomaterials Lab uses a super user model to help in the day-to-day maintenance and training on most Lab instruments and equipment. This has proved to be a successful model to engage graduate and post-doctoral students in learning more about instruments they use in their own research as they take part in the problem-solving process with other researchers from different departments and scientific interests.

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Supplementary Information

Biomaterials Lab Hosts 2nd Annual Biofabrication Workshop The Biomaterials Lab hosted the 2nd Annual Biofabrication Workshop on February 27, 2019. Around 50 attendees came from across the United States. Undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, scientists, and professors from academia and industry participated in the day-long event. This year the workshop welcomed speakers presenting topics ranging from bioprinting methods to nanofabrication topics. Speakers included Dr. Matthew Peña, Dr. Tim Gilheart, Julio Aleman, Ryan Lutrell, and Stephanie Davis. Dr. Helen Lu, Vice Chair and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University, gave the keynote presentation on Biofabrication for Interface Tissue Engineering.

Course material covered advanced topics in bioprinting and biofabrication such as printing with cellular components, assessing printability of custom materials, design considerations for 3D printing, and presurgical planning with 3D printing. Presenters and attendees also discussed techniques including bioprinting, melt-electrospinning writing, fusion deposition modeling, and more. Attendees were given a chance to bring their own biomaterial and work with experts to create a printing paradigm with it on bioprinters available in the Biomaterials Lab. Other hands-on exercises included learning how to use a 3D printing welding technique to construct complex tissue scaffolds and how to print vascularized structures for organ-on-a-chip models.

Thank you to everyone who helped make the event a success, including our sponsors from Stratasys (https://www.stratasys.com/) and CellInk (https://cellink.com/). We look forward to hosting the Biofabrication Workshop again next year.

Workshop attendees examining their first bioprinting components from the printer.

Workshop attendees learning how to print organs on a chip.

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The Biomaterials Lab Welcomes 2019 Summer Interns Nine high school-aged students attended the Biomaterials Lab for a week-long bootcamp in biomaterials. Students learned the basics of tissue engineering, 3D printing, and medical device design.

With hands-on demonstrations and experiments, they created their own “bioinks.” These 3D-printable materials are especially suited for 3D printing with cells and biologically compatible components. The students also learned methods to analyze these 3D-printed constructs, using micro-computed tomography to take 3D medical images of different samples and then mechanical testing to determine how strong those constructs were.

“The Biomaterials Lab is a perfect environment for these types of projects,” said Dr. Antonios Mikos, Director of the Biomaterials Lab. “We remain committed to STEM outreach and are always delighted to promote science.”

The week culminated in two major engineering projects. First, students took all their acquired knowledge to design, developed, and fabricate their own prototype 3D-printed scaffolds. These scaffolds were intended as osteochondral plugs--devices that could replace both cartilage and bone in articulating joints. The students made 3D models which they 3D-printed from various biomaterials. With the aid of graduate students and post-doctoral students from the lab of Dr. Mikos, the devices were then put to the test by being crushed in a mechanical testing machine to determine the devices’ compressive strength.

Students also spent the week printing and putting together prosthetic hands with basic grasping functionality.

Student interns learning about the development of bioinks for 3D printing from a Rice University graduate student.

High school interns and their mentors participated in a week-long internship culminating in the fabrication of a tissue engineering bone scaffold and a 3D-printed prosthetic hand.

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“We loved welcoming such talented and inquisitive students into the lab,” said Associate Director of the Biomaterials Lab, Dr. Anthony Melchiorri. “These students all have a bright future in science and engineering should they choose a STEM career, and we were impressed by the effort and creativity they put into designing their own 3D-printed bone scaffolds.”

This experience was performed in partnership with Awty International School, Tomball High School, Seven Lakes High School, the Center for Engineering Complex Tissues, and the Biomaterials Lab.

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Biomaterials Lab Hosts Students Visiting from Mexico City as Part of the Health Museum’s Innovation Days

The Biomaterials Lab was proud to partner with the Health Museum to once again take part in the Innovation Days program. A group of students visited the Texas Medical Center for a week full of cutting edge technologies and a chance to design their own medical device. Each student attending the program found themselves at a crossroads: now that they were approaching the end of high school, what is the next step to getting involved in a healthcare-related career? The purpose of this program was to help provide the insight necessary for them to embark on the next stage of their education. Students toured laboratories and clinics. They met with

practicing clinicians and research scientists. The Biomaterials Lab was happy to play a part in the program by arranging a visit to our facility to learn the basics of 3D printing and biofabrication. The students saw how these technologies will play a significant role in healthcare research and the future of medicine. Most importantly, the graduate students and other Lab personnel talked about careers in healthcare and the biomaterials field. At the end of the introductory day, students had a chance to meet with researchers from a variety of academic backgrounds, including global health and material sciences. The discussions they shared proved fruitful with one student remarking how she had no idea so many awesome opportunities existed in this field. Another said he had been nervous about selecting the right career trajectory for his future, but now feels confident in knowing there is so much flexibility with an education focused on materials science and biomaterials. Finally, students designed prototype medical devices between their lab and clinic visits. The Biomaterials Lab helped consult in these designs and fabricate the devices in time for these future researchers to present their inventions at the culmination of the Global Teen Medical Summit.

Students visiting Houston from Mexico City watch a graduate student demonstrate how to bioprint a tissue engineered model of a nose.