3D printed sacrificial templates for manufacturing hydrogels with interconnected vasculatures (Conference Presentation)

Biological systems often incorporate complex, micron-scale, highly vascularized architectures within soft matrices, which are challenging to replicate with conventional engineering methods. Projection micro-stereolithography (PµSL) patterns high-resolution features, but it typically employs densely crosslinked, high-moduli materials that do not align with the properties of tissues. Volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM) can cure volumes of photosensitive biomaterials in a single step. However, VAM patterning of high-resolution features with biomaterial resins can be challenging due to the natural scattering of proteins. To overcome these limitations, we developed a material strategy to merge both PµSL and VAM print platforms to obtain high-resolution vascular features within biomaterial scaffolds with superior mechanical integrity. We print a high-resolution template with the PµSL printer using a water degradable photocurable resin. The template is overprinted with VAM utilizing bioderived materials. The overprinted structures are then incubated under mild, basic conditions to dissolve the sacrificial templates and release high-resolution vascular features within soft scaffolds.