Bacterial Cell Printing.

The evolution of cell printing has made the prospect of printing tissues and organs a feasible technological goal. With much attention given to the potential impacts in the medical community, less interest has been directed towards the ability of these same technologies to print living bacteria. With potential applications ranging from isolation of bacteria from human infections or environmental samples to purification of carbon nanotubes containing thin films, the prospects of utilizing cell printing technologies to deposit high resolution patterns of bacteria should be considered. This chapter will first give experimental details of the three types of cell printers with demonstrated capabilities to print living bacteria: ink jet, electrohydrodynamic jetting and modified laser induced forward transfer (LIFT). We will then summarize some of the recent bacteria printing results including deposition of genetically engineered bacteria and environmental samples. We will also show that single cells can be printed using these techniques, potentially allowing a single bacterium to be isolated from highly complex, multi-strain cultures or samples. We will end the chapter by discussing the demonstrated capabilities of the different cell printing technologies and discuss potential applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]