Light beam projection guided biofabrication of aligned tissues

Abstract

One aspect of the invention relates to a method for making a three-dimensional hydrogel bioimplant, characterized by geometrical structures in sub-millimeter size range. The method comprises the provision of a first composition susceptible to photo-crosslinking in a container. This first composition comprises a first polymer susceptible to photo-crosslinking, a photoinitiator and optionally, a refractive index matching agent, a photo absorptive dye, and a crosslinking agent. In a first illumination step, the composition is illuminated with a plurality of spatially coherent light beams, whereby a plurality of micropillars is generated in the composition. Another aspect of the invention relates to a three-dimensional hydrogel implant comprising or essentially consisting of a plurality of microbeams of a photo-crosslinked polymer, said three-dimensional hydrogel implant obtained by a method according to the invention.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.