Liquid Handling · Bioprinting · Extrusion · 2019 · HardwareX
Nydus One Syringe Extruder (NOSE): A Prusa i3 3D printer conversion for bioprinting applications
Bioprinting, combined with other tissue engineering techniques, is a promising method to create engineered tissues or standardized 3D cell culturing models. It has potential applications in the development of animal free models for drug toxicity screenings or for personalized medicine approaches.
Performance the paper reports
0 of 5- Motion—Motion accuracy: not reported
- Volume—Volumetric accuracy: not reported
- Viability—Cell viability: not reported
- Unattended—Unattended operation: not reported
- Standard—Standard compliance: not reported
The full text was read and states no figure for any of the five.
How hard this is to adopt
3.1 of 5, higher is easierEach score is shown against the range the other 59 builds actually occupy, because no criterion uses the full 1–5 scale. These describe how reproducible the build is, not how good the science is.
Resolution
2/1–5Smallest feature/positioning evidence about 500 µm.
Throughput
2/2–5Operation appears single-unit or manually constrained.
Parts sourcing
3/2–4Mix of common parts and custom/printed components.
Skill needed
3/2–4Multiple technical skills appear required.
Facilities needed
3/2–4Requires accessible but nontrivial lab/maker equipment.
Documentation
4/2–5Open resources include several build or operation artifacts.
Validation effort
4/2–4Validation includes standards, benchmarking, replicates, or multi-condition tests.
Cycle time
4/1–4Speed evidence suggests rapid, real-time, or automated operation.
2 further criteria are recorded but not shown
- Application Level — scored 4 (75% of records share one value), so it cannot separate one build from another.
- Build Time (scored for only 6 of 60 records), so it cannot separate one build from another.
Both remain in the published dataset.
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Record metadata
Publication data
Matched by doi · retrieved 2026-07-21
Abstract
Bioprinting, combined with other tissue engineering techniques, is a promising method to create engineered tissues or standardized 3D cell culturing models. It has potential applications in the development of animal free models for drug toxicity screenings or for personalized medicine approaches. Here we report the conversion of the worldwide used open source 3D printer (RepRap, Prusa i3) to a functional and affordable bioprinter by substituting the common plastic-extruder with the Nydus One Syringe Extruder (NOSE). The NOSE modification enables mechanical hydrogel extrusion as well as a tunable deposition precision and volume by featuring a modular syringe-holder concept. A cost effective and simple hardware design including a custom software (termed ‘composer’) was developed to prove that this technique can be made accessible for a broader public. Furthermore, the printing procedure was optimized for the peer-reviewed FRESH-method by Hinton et al. which allows to print geometrical complex cell-laden constructs. We provide a detailed protocol on the creation of the FRESH-gel to ensure the reproducibility of this state of the art method. As a proof of concept HEK293 cells as well as mouse embryonic stem cells (mESC) were utilized for cell-laden printing. Depending on the cellular source the survival rates range from 60% up to 95%. Automatized quantitative viability analysis was performed using the open source image analysis tool Icy, in particular the “spot detector” plugin. A detailed protocol allows the recreation of the assay. Further data utilizing a support bath printing technique reveal limitations regarding the printing and residential time of cell-laden constructs. Keywords: Open Source Bioprinter, RepRap Modificiation, Mechanical Syringe Extruder, Bioprinting Protocol, Bioprinting Software
Bibliographic details
Access and metrics
Topics and keywords
Funding
- Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Perspective and practical signals
Why it matters
Often referenced for syringe-based extrusion designs; adjacent to extrusion bioprinting toolchains.
Limitations
No limitation note curated yet.