Aiming to create artificial organs and tissues for clinical application, the Production  and Validation Center for Advanced Therapies of the University of Barcelona (Creatio), will purchase and launch one of the first 4D laser-assisted  bioprinters in Europe. Creatio obtained a funding of 999,604 euros from the Ministry of Science and Innovation, within the call Equipamiento Científico-Técnico 2021. The University of Barcelona will become a worldwide reference in translational research in tissue engineering.

The director of Creatio, Josep M. Canals, describes the acquisition of this bioprinter, which will be fully operational by mid-2022 as an “important strategical step”. “Regenerative medicine and tissue engineering are providing great advances for producing tissues and organs in the laboratory, but we need one more step in the clinic so that these can be transplanted in humans. The new bioprinter in the Creatio facilities will allow us to advance in the application of regenerative medicine for many diseases that go from skin regeneration to the nervous system regeneration strategies”.

The purchase of this bioprinter will allow Creatio, the UB and Spain to be in the leading positions of regenerative medicine worldwide. This state-of-the-art 4D bioprinter includes the  combination of strategies of conventional bioprinting such as extrusion with  innovative methods such as laser-assisted methods to obtain a high-resolution in the positioning both of extracellular matrix and cells themselves.

Today, there are  only two bioprinters like this one in the world, and both are in the European Union: Barcelona and Marseille.