A new 3D bioprinter developed by nanoengineers operates at record speed — it can print a 96-well array of living human tissue samples within 30 minutes. The technology could help accelerate high-throughput preclinical drug screening and make it less costly.

The process for a pharmaceutical company to develop a new drug can take up to 15 years and cost up to $2.6 billion. It generally begins with screening tens of thousands of drug candidates in test tubes. Successful candidates then get tested in animals, and any that pass this stage move on to clinical trials. With any luck, one of these candidates will make it into the market as an FDA approved drug.

The high-throughput 3D bioprinting technology developed at UC San Diego could accelerate the first steps of this process. It would enable drug developers to rapidly build up large quantities of human tissues on which they could test and weed out drug candidates much earlier.

«With human tissues, you can get better data — real human data — on how a drug will work,» said Shaochen Chen, a professor of nanoengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. «Our technology can create these tissues with high-throughput capability, high reproducibility and high precision. This could really help the pharmaceutical industry quickly identify and focus on the most promising drugs.»

The work was published in the journal Biofabrication.

The researchers note that while their technology might not eliminate animal testing, it could minimize failures encountered during that stage.

Story Source: Materials provided by University of California — San Diego. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.