What does it take to build a heart?

Biomanufacturing uses 3D bioprinting to fabricate organoids and cell models that imitate natural tissue. 

Currently, it’s most common use is a one size fits all model which prints cells within biomaterial scaffolds that provide basic tissue cues. 

That’s where the Faculty of Medicine and Health’s newly established Biomanufacturing Incubator comes into play.

It is a multidisciplinary initiative that aims to unify areas around the University of Sydney already independently working in the field, led by Professor Steven Wise, cardiovascular bioengineering researcher and a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow, and Associate Professor Khoon Lim, biomedicine researcher and Australian Research Council Future Fellow.

Similar to how Marty McFly and Doc in Back to the Future promised we’d have hoverboards by now, biomanufacturing is a technology that has long promised to be able to engineer human organs for people.

“That’s what the technology could do, but we’re far from what it promised us, which was if you have a heart attack, we’ll bring you a new heart,” says Professor Wise. 

“What’s big in our field right now is a combination of 3D bioprinting with cells. I realised that we should do something about bridging the divide between little balls of cells, and something that could really help someone.”

Currently, industry practice is to have companies make and sell 3D bioprinters to individual researchers or labs, who conduct their research in silos. Professor Wise says this is what’s holding back progress. 

“There’s little translation of this research into commercialisation,” says Professor Wise from the School of Medical Sciences.

“It’s hard to progress new ideas down the translational pathway because there’s no unified effort where everyone is working together.” 

Professor Wise plans to capitalise on the areas we already excel in. 

“We’ve got the best scientists who do cell culture in their respective discipline, and close links to Local Health Districts and teams who conduct clinical trials,” says Professor Wise.

He says everything has fallen into place, all he did was come along and connect the dots. 

“We’re in a perfect storm,” says Professor Wise. 

“The University of Sydney is making this once in a lifetime investment in the infrastructure and we’re working with top scientists and engineers, mixed with technology that everyone’s excited about. 

“That won’t happen to me again in my lifetime. It feels like lightning in a bottle.”

Biomanufacturing is a field that excels through multidisciplinary collaboration. 

“If you’re going to move towards making an off-the-shelf pancreas or a place where beta cells can grow and cure diabetes, you need engineers and chemists, but you also need the best diabetes people,” says Professor Wise. 

A diverse technology with broad capacity, bioprinting can add value across all disease states.

The Biomanufacturing Incubator will bring in Faculty of Medicine and Health cell biologists who work across vascular systems, facial reconstruction, eyesight, dentistry and diabetes, and pair them with bioprinting experts to plug them into a “biomanufacturing way of thinking”.

“What I love about biomanufacturing is we’re at the dawn of it,” says Professor Wise. 

“I think it’s only shown a fraction of its potential.” 

A big hurdle is ensuring these materials are safe for a human.

As they’re built now, 3D bioprinters are constrained to a small subset of materials that can be put through them, with the cells trying to stay alive in that printed material.

Professor Wise and Associate Professor Lim hope to see the printing technology evolve with the industry, which could expand the scope for what materials are possible. 

One of the Incubator’s key priorities is to innovate the bioinks and gels used for printing, so that diverse types of cells such as brain cells, or cells that could help treat diseases like diabetes, can survive. 

“We want to get through these early barriers and showcase the value it can add to the work of non-bioprinting researchers,” says Associate Professor Lim, also from the School of Medical Sciences.

“We’re doing this because we want to fundamentally transform a disease state. We want to go after big ideas like a cure for diabetes.

"We want to provide those next generation materials that have been promised my whole career.”

So why now? 

Professor Wise co-chairs the biomanufacturing working group for the Sydney Biomedical Accelerator (SBA), a visionary partnership between the University of Sydney, Sydney Local Health District and the NSW Government that will see a world-leading health, education and biomedical research complex established in Sydney in 2027.

The working group, including researchers and technicians from science, medicine, engineering and the Sydney Local Health District, have designed biomedical advanced manufacturing facilities for the SBA that will integrate fundamental, pre-clinical, and clinical research with expertise in biomedical and tissue engineering and advanced manufacturing. 

“This will be a great space with cutting edge printers and will sit alongside dedicated labs and spaces for startups and industry collaboration.," say Professor Wise.

"We are two or three years out now so it’s time to tap into a translational mindset, so we are ready to make the most of the opportunities on offer when the SBA opens."

The Biomanufacturing Incubator adds another important element to the University’s strength in this area.

It will complement existing research programs and collaborations in drug discovery and organoid innovation, and core research facilities such as Sydney Analytical.

Following a tremendously successful two years of research development and impact, the Heat and Health Research Incubator has transitioned to an Impact Centre, and will now be known as the Heat and Health Research Centre (HHRC).

Made up of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers, the HHRC is led by Professor Ollie Jay and brings together policymakers, industry, healthcare professionals and researchers to focus efforts on reducing the impacts of extreme heat and hot weather on human health and society, and to develop optimal solutions to adapt to a warming planet.