The LulzBot Bio combines versatility with exceptional print quality in a compact and easy-to-use bioprinter. Certified for FRESH printing, the Bio includes everything you need to get started printing bioinks, unmodified collagen, and other soft materials. With an Open Source design and less than an hour of out-of-the-box setup time, the Bio’s capabilities can grow as fast as your innovation.

Bioprinting is revolutionizing pharmaceutical development, cosmetic testing, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. 3D bioprinted tissues can be used to mimic in vivo conditions, enabling organizations to better predict efficacy and toxicology of potential drugs early on in the drug discovery process.

Check out the video overview to learn more.

The LulzBot Bio is FRESH certified, which means it's designed to take advantage of the most advanced bioprinting method currently available.

FRESH (Freeform Reversible Embedding of Suspended Hydrogels) allows for 3D printing of bioinks, unmodified collagen, and other soft materials. By printing into a suspension of support material (LifeSupport), these soft structures can be printed in ways never before possible.

This bioprinting approach has been used with great success by leading medical researchers. See the following publications for details:

• 3D bioprinting of collagen to rebuild components of the human heart
• 3D printing of personalized thick and perfusable cardiac patches and hearts
• Freeform Perfusable Microfluidics Embedded in Hydrogel Matrices
• 3D Printing PDMS Elastomer in a Hydrophilic Support Bath
• Three-dimensional printing of complex biological structures by FRESH

Check out this video to see how the LifeSupport material is prepared.

The syringe pump extruder design allows for precise control of material extrusion, enabling printing of high-detail objects in a wide range of materials with varying viscosities.

Note: The syringe pump extruder uses Hamilton Gas Tight 1000 Series Syringes (81420, 81520, and 81620) with X-Style Plunger and Luer Lock termination. The Bio will come with one Hamilton 2.5 mL Gastight Syringe Model 1002 TLL as well as 3 different size syringe collars for 2.5 ml, 5 ml and 10 ml glass syringes.

The Bio features a 4.5” glove-friendly touch screen and SD card slot for easy operation without the need to be tethered to a computer.

All of the printer's functions can be accessed via an intuitive touch panel which provides graphical indications for easy operation of the LulzBot Bio.

The heated bed makes it easy to dissolve the LifeSupport material after your print is finished. Just leave the heated bed at room temperature while printing, then heat it to body temperature to easily melt away the LifeSupport suspension material once your print is complete.

The open source design of the FRESH Certified LulzBot Bio opens up a world of exciting possibilities across a range of industries. Here are just some of the possible use cases:

• Pharmaceutical & cosmetic testing –
  • In vitro (in a test tube) testing aims to reduce failure rate (currently 90%+) of bringing drugs to market (costs ~$2.5b in 2018) by testing on bioprinted tissues in pre-clinical testing. The goal is to reduce failure when moving to phase 3 (clinical) trials (estimated 50% failure rate in clinical trials).
  • Can be used to recreate physiology to study disease.
  • Testing on kidney and liver cells are of particular importance.
• Tissue Engineering – The practice of combining scaffolds, cells, and biologically active molecules into functional tissues.
  • Long term goal of bioprinting human organs.
• Regenerative Medicine – The process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function.
• Education – The bio is expected to be extremely impactful for teaching life sciences in K-12.

The LulzBot Bio’s open materials system includes ready-to-print profiles for alginate and unmodified collagen. With a configurable syringe pump system and extrusion settings, the Bio is easily adjustable for new materials and processes.

No other desktop 3D bioprinter can match the value and capabilities of the LulzBot Bio:

• Able to print unmodified collagen and other soft materials. Other bioprinting techniques often require chemical alteration or mixing of materials to enable / improve ‘printability’.
• Hardware / software is easily configurable for new materials and processes.
• Open material format. No proprietary materials.
• More affordable than most market options.
• Bigger maximum print area than most competitors. The compact design easily fits within laminar flow cabinets or tissue culture hoods.
• LulzBot has a long standing reputation for exceptional print quality. Print quality is said to match or exceed $100k+ machines.
  • Some of the best print quality for FFF style bioprinters.
  • Improved print quality by an order of an magnitude over Fresh 1.0 (250 μm to 20 μm)
• Comes with a generous supply (50g) of Sodium Alginate (this material alone would cost up to $32,000 from other companies)

• Syringe pump system enables printing of highly intricate structures such as blood vessels and artery trees
  • Better control of stopping / retraction which reduces oozing.
  • Pneumatic systems only have positive pressure and near zero pressure.
  • For pneumatic systems, the pressure required to extrude materials is not linear and variable based on the amount of material in the system.
  • It is speculated that some of the pneumatic systems on the market lack adequate pressure to dispense highly viscous materials.

• Syringe pump system enables printing of highly intricate structures such as blood vessels and artery trees
  • Better control of stopping / retraction which reduces oozing.
  • Pneumatic systems only have positive pressure and near zero pressure.
  • For pneumatic systems, the pressure required to extrude materials is not linear and variable based on the amount of material in the system.
  • It is speculated that some of the pneumatic systems on the market lack adequate pressure to dispense highly viscous materials.