Recent technological advancements opened the way to bioprinting technologies, that is additive manufacturing approaches for the fabrication of living tissue and organ analogs for tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, pharmacokinetic, and other biological studies. This talk addresses the state-of-the-art, open challenges and perspective opportunities of computational design approaches in bioprinting. In particular, the focus is on the printing of soft materials, where carrier materials in bio-inks are hydrogels. The effect of shear thinning properties of hydrogels on bioprinting settings parameters are firstly discussed. Moreover, computational chemo-mechanical models are presented to simulate post-printing crosslinking strategies (gelation) and how these might be employed to assess the mechanical properties and shape fidelity of the printed construct. The lecture will conclude with an insight on how computational tools might be employed for explaining and optimizing cell responses on the basis of space-varying gel properties.

Michele Marino obtains his Bachelor (2005) and Master (2008) Degree in Medical Engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. In 2013, he achieves a PhD in Structural Mechanics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and, in 2015, he is granted with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (Host Institute: Institute of Continuum Mechanics, LU Hannover, Germany). Since 2017, he is Group Leader for Predictive Simulation in Biomechanics and lecturer of finite elements and material modelling courses for Bachelor and Master Degrees in Civil and Mechanical Engineering. Since 2015, he is President of the Italian Chapter of the European Society of Biomechanics and, since 2018, member of the board of the Biomechanics Group of the Italian Association of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics (AIMETA). In 2019, he has been awarded the Prize AIMETA Junior 2019 in Mechanics of Solids and Structures and a tenure-track professorship in the Program for Young Researchers “Rita Levi Montalcini”.