Laserlab-Europe Talk: Boosting multiphoton 3D printing for biomedical engineering: small features, high impact, 2 April 2025

Speaker: Irina Alexandra Paun (INFLPR)

The biomedical engineering sector is one of the most rapidly growing industrial areas, bringing together engineering, medicine and biology, to develop novel technologies for medical treatment. Modern biomedical engineering advanced the concept of “reverse engineering”, which means building micro- and nano-structures with functional biomimicry by extracting design parameters from biological systems, such as from cell types and shapes, and from the complex 3D architectures of extracellular matrix microenvironments. Cells seeded on these 3D micro/nano-structures attach, interconnect, proliferate, and finally form masses of cells organized in 3D architectures closely resembling the natural tissue. These micro/nano-structures are currently used not only for fundamental mechanistic studies on the development, regeneration, and repair of damaged human tissues, but also for diagnostics, disease modeling, drug delivery, and personalized medicine.

In this talk, I will present our recent results on the fusion between reverse engineering and laser processing, within the scope of current challenges in medical treatments. Specifically, I will show how we “boosted” a conventional 3D printing technique, known as Laser Direct Writing via Two-Photon Polymerization (LDW via TPP), for biomedical engineering. LDW via TPP has been extensively used for fabricating structures with complex 3D architectures, for biomedical use. It is known that LDW via TPP offers low operational costs, rapid processing time, high spatial resolution, and full reproducibility of the obtained structures, mandatory for systematic in vitro studies. In our work, we targeted the development of innovative, synergistic combinations of 3D micro/nano-structures fabricated by LDW via TPP and specific structure characteristics such as composition, morphology, and surface chemistry. This approach allowed us to obtain better control over attachment, growth, and, in some cases, differentiation of various cell types, e.g. osteoblasts, fibroblasts, and glial cells. We further improved the effectiveness of the laser-printed structures by volumetric integration of electrically and magnetically responsive biomaterials into the “backbone” of the structures. The electrically or magnetically “active” 3D micro/nano-structures allowed us to accelerate certain processes involved in tissue regeneration by externally applied electric or magnetic stimuli.

We expect this approach to emerge in advanced biomedical applications such as tissue engineering, wound dressings, and advanced drug delivery systems, with the final goal of refining patient-oriented treatments.