Additive manufacturing of novel tubular designs using a filament-driven opensource melt electrowriting machine

Over the last two decades, additive manufacturing has been gaining significant attention in tissue engineering and biofabrication research as a versatile class of manufacturing technologies. For biomedical research, high resolution 3D printing techniques, such as melt electrowriting (MEW) are of interest due to their exceptional ability to replicate fine features and complex microarchitecture of native tissues to mimic both their structure and function. 1 Most MEW happens on either flat or tubular collectors, the latter being often used to mimic blood vessels or as potential nerve guides. 2 To date, tubular scaffolds are fully closed, while we have developed a novel scaffold design which is partially opened allowing for potential application as nerve guide after patterning of gold on the inside.