3D Printing Strategies for Bioengineering Human Cornea

Abstract

Over 4.2 million people worldwide suffer from vision impairment related to corneal diseases, with the shortage of donor corneas limiting surgical interventions. The development of 3D printing provides a promising solution for corneal tissue engineering, offering precise control over dimensionality, structural organization, and cell–matrix interactions. The choice of biomaterials and printing strategies critically determines the properties of 3D-printed corneal constructs. While prior reviews have summarized general bioinks and techniques, few have addressed cornea-specific benchmarks such as transparency, curvature, and mechanical robustness. This review provides a comprehensive discussion on the current study of 3D printed cornea, with a focus on replicating the biomechanical and optical properties of native human cornea. Key limitations in current fabrication methods are outlined, and recent advancements in 3D bioprinting technologies—many of which have been successfully applied in other tissue engineering contexts—are reviewed for their potential in producing anisotropic, multilayered corneal constructs with high resolution and fidelity. 3D printing human cornea is believed to have strong potential in generating scalable and clinically relevant solutions to overcome the global donor cornea tissue shortage, and 3D printing holds a central role in their development.