Bioengineering 3D Cardiac Microtissues Using Bioassembly

Abstract

Bioengineering of three-dimensional (3D) cardiac microtissues is broadly needed in basic biomedical research and clinical therapy. Biofabrication is a method that is used for the generation of defined biological products from living cells, biomaterials, bioactive molecules, and extracellular matrices. As one of the mainstream technical routes in biofabrication, bioassembly has been widely used for generating 3D cardiac microtissues. In this chapter, emerging bioassembly techniques used for constructing cardiac microtissues are summarized, according to external or internal driving forces for cell manipulation, including acoustic force, magnetic force, gravity, and molecular recognition. The maturation of cardiac microtissues and their biomedical applications are also discussed. This chapter is suitable for postgraduate and undergraduate students as well as clinicians and medical researchers who are interested in bioengineering and wish to obtain a fundamental understanding of bioassembly approaches for the fabrication of 3D cardiac microtissues.