Francesco Pampaloni, Louise Breideband and Levin Hafa recently participated in a video to explain the work developed at the Physical Biology Group from the Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt (GUF). Their role in Brighter Project is, together with Mycronic, to adapt the light-sheet microscopy technique to 3D bioprinting. In their laboratory they are focused in applying physical models and physical technologies to understand biological systems.
Brighter project is developing a new 3D bioprinting technology based in light-sheet microscopy, and the expected outcome is to have a technology capable of producing engineered human tissues with a high spatial resolution and at a high printing speed. Moreover, the use of the light-sheet microscopy will allow to observe in real time the fabrication of the tissue while it is being printed.
To achieve this ambitious aim, five academic and industrial partners are involved in Brighter project, and people from Goethe University Frankfurt (GUF) have a crucial role in the constructions of the 3D bioprinter equipment. The Physical Biology Group, led by Prof. Dr. Ernst H.K. Stelzer, is a pioneer in the field of Light Sheet Fluorescence Microscopy applied to cell and developmental biology. They employ physiologically relevant cellular models for both fundamental and applied as well as translational research.
Dr. Francesco Pampaloni, Louise Breideband and Hevin Hafa are the researchers from this lab involved in Brighter project. Recently they participated in a video created in the context of the Giersch – Summerschool & International Conference 2021 where they talk about light-sheet microscopy and bioprinting (from 1’48”).
At the Physical Biology Group they apply physical methods, in particular light and fluorescence microscopy to analyze biological specimens in 3D, concretely, in the frame of Brighter project the main tool they are developing is the light -sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM).
According to Francesco Pampaloni, the main advantages of this technique is that with a minimal exposure of the samples to light, so they are preserved for a longer time, it is possible to have very fast and precise 3D imaging of a specimen.
On the other hand, and according to Louise Breideband, the importance of using this technique is that is allows to understand the 3D dimension structure of a specimen, specially in the context of tissue engineering and bioprinting, as they focus on generating the microstructures that will accurately mimic the 3D environment. To do so, they 3D print cells in an hydrogel with a technique called light-sheet photopolymerization.