UWRF TCIC/Century College 2021 Biofabrication Internship Program: A Regional Undergraduate Campus Collaboration Focused on Bioprinting Tumor Models to Study Cancer Biology

Abstract

Since Fall of 2018 the UWRF Tissue and Cellular Innovation Center (TCIC) and the Century College Biofabrication Program have been engaged in a growing cross‐institutional and cross‐border collaboration effort. This effort includes both academic and research components and reached new levels this past year in the Spring and Summer of 2021 when the TCIC hosted 5 Century College Biofabrication students in a 10‐week research‐based internship. This was followed by 2 students continuing for another 10 weeks through the summer extending and expanding our collaborative research project. The main focus of this work was to develop bioprinting as a new tool at the TCIC for the study of in‐vitro 3D artificial tumor and stromal tissues. This work successfully expanded our working library of methods and techniques for generating artificial tissues while addressing and overcoming several limitations we have previously encountered. Among these have been the relative quantification and distribution of loaded cells within or on previous matrix materials. Over the past two decades, the TCIC has successfully developed and expanded several in‐vitro cancer modeling strategies using combinations of natural decellularized/decalcified ECM materials and various formats of hydrogels made of chitosan and hyaluronic acid (HA) as well as no added matrix constructs in hanging‐drop and rocker cultures. With the exception of the hanging‐drop cultures, precision in loading cell densities as well as final cell distribution have always been relative with significant margins for uncontrollable variations. With this new bioprinting approach we were able to predictably and repeatedly generate 3D artificial melanoma and breast cancer constructs containing defined numbers of cells per unit volume and a relatively precise, even distribution of cells throughout these structures. During this internship and then the research project itself, Century College students gained a wide range of experience and training in basic cell culture methods from aseptic techniques to generating hydrogel‐based 3D constructs and then beyond to bioink printed disks and cups as well as several approaches to cellular analysis. By moving to develop this new TCIC/Century College collaboration, we are increasing the reach of both institutions and the access for our respective students to new cutting‐edge tissue engineering technology as they prepare for future careers in the growing biomedical and life‐sciences sectors of both our respective states.