A perspective on transformative bioprinting

Our understanding of bioprinting originated from tissue engineering and 3D printing. Over the last two decades, 3D printing has been serving tissue engineering to fulfill its goal of solving the worldwide challenge of human organ shortage. Fundamental research and translation to clinical settings are currently the mainstream and have led to the emergence of translational bioprinting. However, as bioprinting evolves with more refined capabilities such as spatial and temporal controls of multiple biological materials at the microscale, perhaps it is time to reflect on a reciprocal approach, i.e., tissue engineering, to serve 3D printing with the hope to address problems more than or other than organ shortage. Recent examples of cultivated meat, digital bioprinting, bioelectronics, and space exploration may have just revealed the tip of the iceberg, though some still overlap with the goal of tissue engineering. Whenever a new material is introduced to the realm of 3D printing and becomes printable, it always leads to versatile or even unforeseen applications. This has happened to metals, ceramics, composite, and electronics. Although it has been known for a long time that biological cells are 3D-printable, the application of such concept has been always perceived from the angle of tissue engineering with human organ shortage as the sole motivation. Therefore, in this review based on existing evidence, we offer an innovative perspective of bioprinting, termed “transformative bioprinting,” to emphasize the role of an enabling tool of bioprinting and its alternative motivations.