Light-Based 3D Printing Inside the Body: New Junior Research Group Explores Endoscopic Microfabrication

Dr. Andrea Toulouse from the Institute of Technical Optics at the University of Stuttgart has received funding of 1.8 million euros from the Carl Zeiss Foundation to establish the junior research group “3D Endoscopic Microfabrication” (3DEndoFab). The aim of the project is to develop a fiber-based, light-controlled 3D printing process that could one day produce biological tissue directly inside the human body.

The research builds on existing work in 3D printing of biological structures, which has so far mostly been carried out outside the body. In laboratories, laser-based techniques can already be used to build cartilage, muscle, or lung tissue layer by layer. However, for clinical application, this requires an additional surgical procedure to implant the finished structures. Toulouse and her team aim to eliminate this intermediate step by moving the printing process directly to the site of use.

“Having my own independent junior research group gives me the opportunity to advance endoscopic 3D printing with both responsibility and freedom,” says Andrea Toulouse. “With two doctoral researchers from engineering and one from biotechnology, the group will also be interdisciplinary in nature. This is important because developing a bio-3D printer that can be meaningfully applied is a research challenge that can only be solved through collaboration across disciplines.”

Technically, the project is based on the miniaturization of optical components and the use of ultrashort femtosecond laser pulses. A microscopically small 3D-printed optic at the tip of a glass fiber is designed to shape the light so that it can precisely polymerize bio-inks on the micrometer scale.

“In our group, we want to develop a 3D-printed micro-optic that is as small as a grain of salt and sits at the tip of a glass fiber. There, it will shape the light in such a way that even complex tissue structures can be printed in 3D—with micrometer resolution and thus on the scale of body cells,” explains Andrea Toulouse.

The group works in an interdisciplinary manner with engineers and biotechnologists and is part of the Bionic Intelligence Tübingen Stuttgart (BITS) research network. Through cooperation with the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomolecular Systems, biological questions will also be explored—for example, whether printed micro-scaffolds can specifically control cell growth. In this way, the project combines fundamental research in photonics with concrete prospects for biomedical applications.