The number of people suffering from neurodegenerative diseases is steadily increasing worldwide as an effect of aging population. Today, approximately 50 million people suffer from dementia, with around 10 million new cases every year. Despite extensive research efforts, there is no available treatment to cure dementia. Similar in scope, chronic pain affects at least 10% of the worlds population, corresponding to a large unmet healthcare need.
To advance research and promote development of new treatments in these areas, there is a need for better, more physiologically relevant, in vitro research models that than can improve disease understanding and increase the efficiency of drug discovery.
With Biopixlar, it is possible to directly print primary neurons with high precision. This enables the design and construction of neuronal patterns that better resemble connections between neurons in vivo compared to conventional cell cultures and that constitutes a powerful tool for neurological research and drug development.
Position neurons right where you want them
The image shows acutely isolated primary rat cortical neurons printed in a rectangular shape (outlined in white) using Biopixlar. The high-precision bioprinting technology of Biopixlar enables you to create patterns by placing cells right where you want them. Customize the arrangement of cells to fit your experiment.
With its microfluidic printhead that produces minimal mechanical stress on the deposited cells, Biopixlar is ideal for handling sensitive cells such as neurons. Biopixlar also prints cells directly in culture media without using any bioink resulting in higher cell viability compared to extrusion bioprinting.
Design cellular patterns
The high bioprinting precision of Biopixlar allows you to create customized patterns of printed neurons with high resolution by placing cells right where you want them. The image to the right show bioprinted primary neurons after incubation for 14 days. The cells have grown axonal projections and have formed interconnected networks.
Biopixlar’s capacity for bioprinting of primary neuron constitutes a powerful platform for disease model generation for studies of pain, neurodegenerative diseases and other neurological disorders. Because of it’s low sample volume requirements, Biopixlar is also well suited to handle scarce samples and patient material.
Read the scientific article 3D micro-organisation printing of mammalian cells to generate biological tissues to learn more about the capacity of Biopixlar to bioprint neurons and other cell and tissue types.
Mattias Karlsson, CEO Cellectricon AB:
“We have been using Biopixlar to develop protocols for printing of different neuronal cells types and we are very pleased with its performance. The capability of this exciting technology to enable precise control of the cellular composition and spatial distribution within a cell culture has the potential to open up completely new avenues for in-vitro modeling of a wide range of central and peripheral nervous system-related diseases.”
