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Bioprinting

Functional droplet networks

Nature Materials volume 12, pages 478–479 (2013)Cite this article

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Tissue-mimicking printed networks of droplets separated by lipid bilayers that can be functionalized with membrane proteins are able to spontaneously fold and transmit electrical currents along predefined paths.

Bayley and colleagues' method holds great potential for applications in bioengineering and medicine. For instance, self-folding printed networks could be programmed to respond and adapt to changes in the surrounding physiological environment. Indeed, smart delivery systems have been designed to respond to changes in pH, temperature, specific ions or chemical groups, or light4. Moreover, self-actuating or externally stimulated soft, inexpensive hydrogel robots could be engineered for detecting toxic substances, biosensing, biofilm cleaning, energy harvesting or environmental remediation. Self-folding, stimuli-responsive droplets might be further integrated with microfluidics to locally capture, isolate and release rare cells for diagnostic applications (for example, circulating tumour cells for cancer detection5 or CD4 cells for HIV monitoring6).

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Figure 1: Printed droplet networks with electrically conductive paths.
Figure 2: Self-folding networks of printed droplets.

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering, Brown University, 02912, Rhode Island, USA

    Naside Gozde Durmus

  2. Brigham and Women's Hospital and Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Savas Tasoglu & Utkan Demirci

  3. Harvard–MIT Health Sciences and Technology, Cambridge, 02139, Massachusetts, USA

    Utkan Demirci

Authors
  1. Naside Gozde Durmus
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  2. Savas Tasoglu
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  3. Utkan Demirci
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Correspondence to Utkan Demirci.

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Durmus, N., Tasoglu, S. & Demirci, U. Functional droplet networks. Nature Mater 12, 478–479 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmat3665

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