AccScience Publishing / IJB / Online First / DOI: 10.36922/IJB026370404
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REVIEW ARTICLE
Early Access

From structural biomimicry to functional regeneration: Advances and translational challenges of 3D bioprinting in cardiovascular medicine

Wenzhen Yin1,2 Donglu Liu3 Guangsheng Yang4 Yuxin Su2 Tanqing Long2 Juan Liu2* Qi Wang2* Lingbing Meng1*
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1 Cardiometabolic Medicine Center, Department of Cardiology, National Clinical Research Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, State Key Laboratory of Cardiovascular Disease, Fuwai Hospital, National Center for Cardiovascular Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, 167 Beilishi Road, Xicheng District, Beijing 100037 , China
2 School of Future Medicine, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing 100102 , China
3 Department of Cardiology, Weihai Central Hospital Affiliated to Qingdao University, Weihai 264200, Shandong Province , China
4 Department of Cardiology, Weihai Central Hospital Affiliated to Qingdao University, Weihai 264200, Shandong Province , China
5 Department of Hepatobiliary Surgery, Zibo Central Hospital, Zibo 255000, Shandong Province , China
Received: 26 August 2026 | Revised: 11 September 2026 | Accepted: 18 September 2026 | Published online: 21 September 2026
(This article belongs to the Special Issue 3D Bioprinting for Engineered Tissues and Organs)
© 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

Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of global mortality, driving an urgent demand for advanced therapeutic strategies beyond conventional pharmacological and surgical interventions. Three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting has emerged as a transformative technology in cardiovascular medicine, offering the unprecedented capability to fabricate living, patient-specific tissues with complex architectures. However, the transition from structural mimicry to functional regeneration is hindered by critical challenges, including vascularization bottlenecks, electromechanical mismatch, and the lack of mature biomimetic microenvironments. This review systematically summarizes recent breakthroughs in cardiovascular bioprinting, covering advanced biofabrication modalities, smart bioink formulations with tunable mechanics and electroactivity, and hierarchical vascularization strategies. We critically evaluate the translational progress of bioprinted constructs in myocardial patches, heart valves, and conduction system reconstruction, alongside their utility in disease modeling and drug screening. Furthermore, we explore the synergistic integration of emerging frontiers—Artificial Intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, and gene editing—highlighting their collective potential to engineer intelligent, adaptive cardiac tissues. Finally, we discuss the remaining hurdles in clinical translation and propose a roadmap for realizing the next generation of functional cardiovascular regenerative therapies.

Keywords
3D bioprinting
Cardiovascular tissue engineering
Functional regeneration
Vascularization
Cardiac patch
4D printing
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International Journal of Bioprinting, Electronic ISSN: 2424-8002 Print ISSN: 2424-7723, Published by AccScience Publishing