AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB026220216
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Early Access

Synergistic 3D bioprinting and electrical stimulation for advanced electroactive tissue regeneration

Jinwei Huang1 Jiaming Wu1 Jinglin Ye1 Lihu Chen1 Wenxiao Fang1 Huachun Wang1*
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1 School of Integrated Circuits, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, China
Received: 26 May 2026 | Revised: 25 June 2026 | Accepted: 30 June 2026 | Published online: 30 June 2026
© 2026 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

Severe tissue injuries often disrupt the body’s endogenous electric fields, making spontaneous healing nearly impossible. Although exogenous electrical stimulation (ES) is an effective intervention, conventional rigid electrodes are mechanically and geometrically incompatible with soft, dynamic biological tissues. To address this problem, three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting with conductive bioinks has emerged as a transformative strategy to create biomimetic, electroactive scaffolds. This review explores how combining 3D‑printed scaffolds with ES promotes complex tissue regeneration. We first analyze the core cellular mechanisms by which ES accelerates tissue repair (e.g., guiding cell migration, enhancing proliferation and directing differentiation). We then summarize the mainstream 3D printing techniques (extrusion-based, inkjet, laser-assisted, photocuring-based printing) and detail the development of conductive bioinks from basic polymers to advanced electroactive materials, including piezoelectric, triboelectric, magnetoelectric, bio‑battery, and optoelectronic materials for wireless stimulation. This synergistic strategy has been widely used to repair various tissue defects, including skin, nerve, bone, muscle and cardiac tissue injuries, and shows considerable therapeutic promise. Finally, we discuss ongoing clinical hurdles and offer a practical roadmap toward programmable scaffolds and closed-loop systems. Overall, this field is rapidly shifting from passive structural support to active electrophysiological guidance, laying the foundation for next-generation smart tissues.

Keywords
3D bioprinting
Electrical stimulation
Conductive bioinks
Electroactive scaffolds
Tissue regeneration
Bioelectronics
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing