Conclusion
3D printing has been a transformative fabrication technology for many sectors, however has not yet experienced widespread adoption for bioprocessing purposes in part due to the inherent complexities associated with medicines manufacturing. Whilst this approach still requires development and maturation before manufacturing scale operation can be realized, the ability to produce materials with chemical and physical properties specifically tailored to a product of interest presents several bioprocessing opportunities. Recent emergence of a diverse field of therapeutic modalities such as viral vectors and lipid nanoparticles, which have increased complexities and size when compared to established therapeutic proteins to conventional monoclonal antibodies for bioprocessing, may benefit from novel structures.
Through integrating 3D imaging with 3D printing then structure across multiple length scales can be directly related to function and performance. Structural data from X-ray CT has been found to greatly enhance quantitative information available to inform improvements to the next generation of bioseparations structure prototypes.
Acknowledgements
Thomas Johnson and Daniel Bracewell acknowledge the UCL-Pall Biotech Centre of Excellence, established in 2018. Paul Shearing acknowledges support from the Royal Academy of Engineering. This work was supported by the EPSRC National Research Facility for Lab X-ray CT (NXCT). Mariachiara Conti acknowledges the support from Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies UK, the Scottish Research Partnership in Engineering (SRPe-IDP/03) and the IBioIC “Ready for Industry” PhD training programme, funded by the Scottish Funding Council under their Innovation Centre programme.