AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB025290291
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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Automated and scalable fabrication of scaffolded spheroids as building blocks for modular tissue engineering

Gregor Weisgrab1,2 Sebastian Rudi Adam Kratz3 Mario Rothbauer3,4,5 Martin Frauenlob3,4 Peter Ertl2,3,4 Aleksandr Ovsianikov1,2*
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1 Research Group 3D Printing and Biofabrication, Institute of Materials Science and Technology, Faculty of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria
2 Austrian Cluster for Tissue Regeneration, Vienna, Austria
3 Institute of Applied Synthetic Chemistry, Faculty of Technical Chemistry, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria
4 Institute of Chemical Technologies and Analytics, Faculty of Technical Chemistry, TU Wien, Vienna, Austria
5 Karl Chiari Lab for Orthopedic Biology, Department of Orthopedics and Trauma Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Received: 16 July 2025 | Revised: 29 August 2025 | Accepted: 11 September 2025 | Published online: 11 September 2025
© 2025 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

Current tissue engineering approaches typically utilize either scaffold-based or scaffold-free strategies. Recently, a third approach has emerged, offering a synergistic method that leverages the benefits of both approaches while avoiding their usual drawbacks. In this strategy, spheroids are formed within highly porous microscaffolds, which subsequently serve as building blocks for larger tissue constructs produced through self-assembly. This study demonstrates the automated fabrication of large numbers of these building blocks, tested in vessels of up to 1,536-well plates. To achieve this, we first developed a microfluidic device capable of sorting highly porous microscaffolds, each 300 µm in diameter, at high flow speeds of up to 300 mm/s. A fluorescent detection system was integrated to identify only intact microscaffolds and deposit them individually into separate wells of cell culture plates. Subsequently, the system automatically dispensed culture medium containing suspended human adipose-derived stem cells into each well. Spheroids were formed within 24 hours of culture with a formation efficiency of 95%. This study presents the development of an automated microfluidic device capable of depositing single microscaffolds and the cells required to form scaffolded spheroids. By enabling large-scale, high-throughput production, this approach advances the third strategy of tissue engineering and supports applications in both screening and clinical translation.

Graphical abstract
Keywords
High-resolution three-dimensional printing
Tissue engineering
Microfluidic automation
Scale-up production
Microscaffolds
Funding
This project was funded by the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant agreement No. 772464).
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no competing interests
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing