UC San Diego

Normal vision is important for many human activities, but many of ocular diseases could lead to vision impairment and affect millions of patients worldwide. In recent years, tissue engineering based on stem cells has been explored to develop novel therapeutic products and disease models for different types of ocular diseases. However, the fabrication of 3D scaffolds supporting the culture of ocular stem cells and the development of engineering approach mimicking the stem cell microenvironment remain challenging.3D bioprinting is an emerging additive manufacturing technology for microscale biofabrication. Among different 3D bioprinting approaches, digital light processing (DLP)-based 3D bioprinting stands out with the rapid, scalable, robust fabrication with high resolution. And with the broad-range material choice and the well-defined mechanical property control, the DLP-based 3D bioprinting has been applied to fabricate hydrogel scaffold encapsulating various types of stem cells. In this dissertation, the 3D bioprinting of two types of ocular stem cells, limbal stem cells and conjunctival stem cells, as well as the applications in stem cell therapy and ocular disease modeling were discussed. By performing the DLP-based bioprinting, we fabricated microscale hydrogel scaffolds encapsulating ocular stem cells while preserving the viability, stemness and potency. Based on this, we fabricated injectable hydrogel constructs encapsulating stem cell for minimally invasive stem cell transplantation. In addition, we bioprinted hydrogel scaffolds with heterogeneous extracellular matrix (ECM) an studied the ECM-dependent stem cell behaviors. Furthermore, with multicellular bioprinting, we developed a novel disease model recapitulating the pathological signatures displayed in patient tissues. These works have emphasized the role of 3D bioprinting in developing stem cell therapy and personalized medicine for ocular diseases.