Three Dimensional Bioprinting of Tissue Engineered Artificial Heart Valves by Stereolithography

Abstract

Over the past several decades, there has been an ever-increasing demand for organ transplants. There are no significant increase observed in organ donations while the need for organ transplantation is keep increasing. Organ donation emerges as the most feasible solution especially in heart valve diseases. There are two types of artificial heart valves are utilized for heart valve replacement operations. These are mechanical heart valves and bioprosthetic heart valves. However, there are severe intrinsic problems exist for both type of artificial heart valves that are hard to be solved. Due to these reasons, growing or fabricating tissue engineered heart valves using biomaterial scaffolds with a person's own cells with high biocompatability. The purpose of this study is; fabricating 3D artificial heart valves by stereolithography that has potential to be obtained for heart valve replacements. Stereolithography has proven potential for fabricating 3D models with high structural integrity and strong mechanical properties, yet it has not been evaluated as a bioprinter. In this study, this purpose is aimed to be succeeded.