Bioprinting for cardiovascular tissue engineering

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. Advanced therapeutic approach such as tissue engineering provides alternative treatment options and model testing for cardiovascular diseases. Some design considerations when engineering cardiac tissue includes inducing cell alignment, attaining high cell density and culturing heterogeneous population of cells within a construct. Bioprinting, a computer-assisted technology, can potentially achieve the abovementioned considerations. The purpose of this review is to 1) highlight the prevalence of cardiovascular disease 2) identify design factors in engineering a cardiovascular tissue and describe conventional fabrication methods in achieving these engineered construct 3) discuss and analyze the role of bioprinting in engineering cardiovascular tissuePublished versio