Chee Kai Chua, Ph.D.
Professor, Engineering Product Development Pillar,
Singapore University of Technology and Design
cheekai_chua@sutd.edu.sg
Biography:
Professor Chee KaiChua is Cheng Tsang Man Chair Professor and Head of Engineering Product Development Pillar at Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD). He is an active contributor to the additive manufacturing (AM) field for over 29 years. Professor Chua began his journey into AM in 1990. Now, his ongoing research at SUTD are concerned mainly with powder bed fusion processes such as selective laser sintering and selective laser melting, bioprinting, electronics printing, 4D printing and food printing. He has made a number of major contributions in these areas. Specifically, his re-design and re-modeling of additive manufacturing processes for fabrication of innovative products and devices such tissue engineering scaffolds are highly regarded by the scientific community. Professor Chua won the prestigious International Freeform and Additive Manufacturing Excellence (FAME) Award in 2018. In 2014, Professor Chua was elected as the top scientist in his research field of AM by Clarivate Analytics, and has maintained his position as one of the most cited scientists in AM since then. As at 2019, he has contributed more than 500 technical papers in local seminars, technical talks, international conferences and journals, generating more than 11,000 citations and a H index of 53 (web of science).
Topic title： Print Me An Organ! Why We Are Not There Yet
Abstract： Bioprinting offers a highly-automated and advanced manufacturing platform that facilitates the deposition of bio-inks (living cells, biomaterials and growth factors) in a scalable and reproducible manner, a process that is lacking in conventional tissue engineering approaches. There are significant improvements in the field of bioprinting over the last two decades; an in- depth analysis of current improvement in the bioprinting techniques, progress in bio-ink development, implementation of new bioprinting and tissue maturation strategies are presented. In this review, we highlight how the progress in polymer sciences complements 3D bioprinting in overcoming some of the major impediments in the field of organ printing. We provide a concise overview of the anatomy and physiology of different tissues/organs, followed by important design considerations to better facilitate the fabrication of biomimetic tissues/organs for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine (TERM). Lastly, a realistic overview of current progress in organ bioprinting by presenting the current limitations and achievements in bioprinted tissue-engineered constructs, followed by an outlook. We strongly believe that with the advances in polymer sciences, it will be an impending reality for on-demand bioprinting of patient-specific tissues/organs.
