A team of academics at Cardiff University has built a 3D printer using Lego and are now encouraging other labs to use its blueprint.

In an article published on news website The Conversation, lecturers at Cardiff University’s School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences called on others to use Lego in their 3D printing projects.

The team, comprised of lecturers Chris Thomas, Sion Coulman, and Oliver Castell, explained that 3D bioprinting requires loading ‘bio-ink’, which contains living cells, into a cartridge. Having been programmed, the bioprinter prints 3D structures that aim to replicate the complex formation of biological tissue.

The team wrote that to get around the “eye-wateringly high cost” around building such machines, they decided to do so by using Lego.

Beyond Lego being cheap and versatile, it is also manufactured to very high precision with standardised parts that are globally accessible, the team said.

At £500 to build, the team’s Lego bioprinter is now being used to create layers of skin cells and working towards a full-scale skin model. The team noted that it can also be modified by using different types of nozzles to print different types of cells, enabling a variety of complexities to be built into the tissue samples it generates.

The team believes the printer and its resultant structures could help researchers to see how skin diseases progress and how potential treatments could be developed.

To help with future research, the team shares that it has provided details - available online - around how they built the Lego 3D bioprinter, featuring clear instructions on how to reconstruct the device in any lab, anywhere in the world.

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