Seminars

Lithography-based biofabrication techniques are being used to engineer structured hydrogels towards biomedical applications, including for tissue repair. Examples include digital light processing (DLP) and volumetric additive manufacturing (VAM), where spatial control over light exposure guides the conversion of photo-reactive resins. DLP is a layer-by-layer approach that requires non-viscous resins for processing, whereas VAM is an emerging rapid 3D method where a vial containing a viscous reactive resin and photoinitiator rotates as it is exposed to light (405 nm) with continuous changes in the projection pattern. Our overall goals are to engineer new resins and to increase the compatibility of these methods with current resins, to expand the available hydrogel materials that can be processed using lithography. For DLP, we have engineered new resins to obtain printed materials with controlled moduli, hydrolytically-degradable behaviors, or that exhibit tough properties, using approaches such as new reactive macromer design (e.g., norbornene HA from carbic anhydride) or the engineering of one-step double networks, respectively. DLP-printed hydrogels are being applied to the engineering of in vitro tissue models (e.g., cardiac applications). Further, we have recently developed methods that increase chain entanglement with DLP methods to produce stiff and tough hydrogels. This approach is being leveraged to engineer structured and patterned tissue adhesives. Towards VAM printing, we developed an approach that utilizes sacrificial gelation that (i) modulates the viscosity of resins to allow for VAM printing of reactive macromers and (ii) allows suspension bath extrusion printing and then VAM printing to pattern multi-material resins that can then be processed into multi-material hydrogel constructs. Overall, these new approaches will advance the use of photocrosslinkable hydrogels for biomedical applications.

Jason A. Burdick, PhD is the Bowman Endowed Professor in the BioFrontiers Institute and Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder. He spent his academic career in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2021 before moving his group to Boulder in 2022. Dr. Burdick’s research involves the design of new biomaterials that can be processed through fabrication methodologies to meet the needs of medicine, ranging from translational therapeutics to tissue models.  Jason currently has over 320 peer-reviewed publications and he is on the editorial boards of Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A, Biofabrication, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Advanced NanoBiomed Research, and International Journal of Bioprinting. He has been recognized through numerous awards such as a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, an American Heart Association Established Investigator Award, and the Clemson Award for Basic Science through the Society for Biomaterials. Jason has also been elected as a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, to the International College of Fellows of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, as a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, and as an International Fellow of The Canadian Academy of Engineering. He has founded several companies to translate the technology from his laboratory into clinical therapeutics.