title: The billion cell construct: will three-dimensional printing get us there?
abstract: How structure relates to function--across spatial scales, from the single molecule to the whole organism--is a central theme in biology. Bioengineers, however, wrestle with the converse question: will function follow form? That is, we struggle to approximate the architecture of living tissues experimentally, hoping that the structure we create will lead to the function we desire. A new means to explore the relationship between form and function in living tissue has arrived with three-dimensional printing, but the technology is not without limitations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America.
authors.forename: Jordan S
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Miller
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D062028:Bioprinting; D006801:Humans; D066330:Printing, Three-Dimensional