Microfluidics for Medical Additive Manufacturing

Abstract

Additive manufacturing plays a vital role in the food, mechanical, pharmaceutical, and medical fields. Within these fields, medical additive manufacturing has led to especially obvious improvements in medical instruments, prostheses, implants, and so forth, based on the advantages of cost-effectiveness, customizability, and quick manufacturing. With the features of precise structural control, high throughput, and good component manipulation, microfluidic techniques present distinctive benefits in medical additive manufacturing and have been applied in the areas of drug discovery, tissue engineering, and organs on chips. Thus, a comprehensive review of microfluidic techniques for medical additive manufacturing is useful for scientists with various backgrounds. Herein, we review recent progress in the development of microfluidic techniques for medical additive manufacturing. We evaluate the distinctive benefits associated with microfluidic technologies for medical additive manufacturing with respect to the fabrication of droplet/fiber templates with different structures. Extensive applications of microfluidic techniques for medical additive manufacturing are emphasized, such as cell guidance, three-dimensional (3D) cell culture, tissue assembly, and cell-based therapy. Finally, we present challenges in and future perspectives on the development of microfluidics for medical additive manufacturing.