3D-printed lungs could improve disease prevention and treatment

Lung diseases like tuberculosis and cystic fibrosis can be difficult to treat. In part, that’s because the two-dimensional models researchers use to study the diseases don’t accurately reflect the shape of human lungs -- and animal models don’t behave like humans do when they encounter disease.

University of Saskatchewan (USask) researchers from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) and the College of Engineering are working to build a better model.

“We’ve realized that we’re lacking a realistic model for lung diseases… and that means that we can’t really plan a better strategy for lung therapies,” says VIDO’s Dr. Nuraina Dahlan, one of the scientists working to make a three-dimensional lung tissue model. A 3D model, she says, would provide a more accurate environment for studying new medicines and pathogens in the lab. Nuraina is studying under Drs. Neeraj Dhar and Arinjay Banerjee (both at VIDO), and Dr. Daniel Chen (College of Engineering).

Lungs contain scaffolding – called an extracellular matrix – inside which lung cells live. Dahlan and her team used the Canadian Light Source at USask to look at their 3D-printed models, so they could understand the tissue’s shape and function without damaging the samples.

They found their model  – 3D printed using special “bioinks” containing actual living cells – does in fact provide an environment in which human lung cells can survive; this suggests the model could be a suitable environment for growing new cells. In the collaborative project, VIDO researchers grew the living cells that were incorporated into the lung models, while researchers in the College of Engineering used 3D printing to fabricate the models. The next step in this research will be 3D printing another lung, then seeing how it responds to infectious diseases.

Dahlan says having a model that perfectly mimics actual human lungs would be a game-changer for lung treatment. Scientists could gain better information about how lung diseases work, develop patient-specific treatments, and eventually, grow whole lungs in the lab.

This, Dahlan says, is the end goal of lung tissue engineering. “That will allow us to not only study diseases, but also to use lab-grown lungs as a replacement for transplantation. Either way, having a more accurate lung model allows us to make personalized treatment strategies: we can test whether a particular drug is suitable for a specific patient. Ultimately, this model gives us better options for lung disease prevention and treatment.”

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Dahlan, Nuraina Anisa, Kim Lam R. Chiok, Xavier L. Tabil, Xiaoman Duan, Arinjay Banerjee, Neeraj Dhar, and Xiongbiao Chen. "Development and characterization of a decellularized lung ECM-based bioink for bioprinting and fabricating a lung model." Biomaterials Advances (2025): 214428. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bioadv.2025.214428 

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