{"id":66841,"date":"2025-09-18T00:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T22:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/?p=66841"},"modified":"2025-09-16T15:44:47","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T13:44:47","slug":"bio-printing-gets-smarter-meet-grace-16092025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/bio-printing-gets-smarter-meet-grace-16092025\/","title":{"rendered":"Bio-Printing Gets Smarter: Meet GRACE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What if your 3D printer had eyes and a brain? That is the idea behind GRACE, a printing technique developed by a team at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. It is a workflow that combines volumetric printing with artificial intelligence<\/a>, allowing the machine to actively participate in the design phase. For example, it could understand where the cells are in the bio-ink and create a network of blood vessels around them. This represents a major advance for the medical field, though it is still in its early stages.<\/p>\n

Bio-printing<\/a> is making progress every day; that is undeniable. If you follow the news, you have likely noticed the breakthroughs and obstacles that some researchers have managed to overcome. Many challenges remain, of course. One of them is the creation of functional blood vessels that can deliver oxygen and nutrients to the cells. Current bio-printing techniques require designing these vessel networks before knowing where the cells are in the bio-ink<\/a>. It is difficult to support these living structures without knowing their exact location.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"The

The GRACE process<\/p><\/div>

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Riccardo Levato is a professor at Utrecht University and leads the Levato Lab, which developed the GRACE process (Generative, Adaptive, Context-Aware 3D printing). With his team, he aimed to create a more efficient, intelligent, and reliable solution for bio-printing. Early on, he turned to volumetric printing<\/a>. Instead of depositing layers of cells one by one, a photosensitive gel is solidified all at once to form the complete structure. Riccardo Levato explains, “To build a structure, we project a series of light patterns into a spinning tube filled with light-sensitive gel and cells. Where the light beams converge, the material solidifies. This creates a full 3D object in one go, without having to touch the cells.<\/em>\u201d The process is faster and less harmful to the cells.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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This technique requires knowing the precise location of the cells to achieve the best possible print while preserving them. The team developed a system with a laser light that can map the chemical and structural composition of the material being printed. Based on this information, the machine selects the optimal geometry to produce. The process relies on artificial intelligence, 3D imaging, computer vision, and parametric modeling<\/a>. Sammy Florczak, a PhD student in the lab, helped develop the process. He says, \u201cIn the past, printing always depended on the designer\u2019s blueprint. Now, GRACE contributes to the design itself. The printer \u2018sees\u2019 what kind of cells are in the material, and where they are. Then, using AI tools, it creates a matching design for the object to be printed. This new printer essentially has its own \u2018eyes\u2019, the laser-based imaging, and \u2018brain,\u2019 the new AI software. That level of customization leads to tissues that survive and function better.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Formation

Formation of the blood vessel network based on the presence of cells in the bio-ink<\/p><\/div>\n

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GRACE could overcome a range of challenges. While we have discussed blood vessels, its applications go far beyond that. Consider the pharmaceutical industry, for example. The process could design structures capable of releasing precisely dosed medications. The team has also explored creating a bone model with cartilage. A femur was 3D printed<\/a> in a gel containing cells derived from articular cartilage and bone marrow stem cells. Once complete, GRACE was able to automatically position and print the cartilage around the femoral head.<\/p>\n

Riccardo Levato concludes, \u201cThis first work on GRACE is just the beginning. We are currently working on increasing the number of cells that can be printed so that we can also print other tissues such as the heart and liver. Additionally, we want to make this technique accessible to other labs so they can apply it to their own printing methods.\u201d It is also possible that GRACE could be used in industries beyond medicine in the future. You can find the full research HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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What do you think of this new GRACE process? Let us know in a comment below or on our\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0pages! Plus, don\u2019t forget to sign up for our free weekly\u00a0Newsletter<\/a>\u00a0to get the latest 3D printing news straight to your inbox. You can also find all our videos on our\u00a0YouTube<\/a>\u00a0channel.<\/p>\n

*All Photo Credits: Riccardo Levato<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if your 3D printer had eyes and a brain? That is the idea behind GRACE, a printing technique developed by a team at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. It is a workflow that combines volumetric printing with artificial intelligence,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6118,"featured_media":66844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66841"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66856,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66841\/revisions\/66856"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3dnatives.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}