Search

This paper presents the method of magneto-acoustic biofabrication of a bioengineering construct from tissue spheroids. It allows creating tissue constructs of tubular shapes. Collected together in a magneto-acoustic trap, tissue spheroids contact with each other and thus fuse to form a 3D tissue construct. The magnetic system was made of two oppositely oriented permanent magnets with an empty space between them. A cylindrical ultrasonic transducer was placed into this space, and a container with tissue spheroids was placed inside the piezoceramic cylinder. The construct was formed in the region, where magnetophoretic forces in the vertical direction compensated gravity, and due to the magnetic gradient in the horizontal plane, the tissue spheroids moved towards each other, levitating above the bottom of the container. The piezoelectric transducer created standing cylindrical ultrasonic waves. The acoustic radiation force acted from the antinode to the node, forming a ring of tissue spheroids. Holding them in this trap for 18–20 hours led to the merging of spheroids into a solid ring-shaped living construct. Changes of the wave frequency and amplitude made it possible to manipulate the size and width of the resulting tissue ring.