[Asia Economy Reporter Ji Yeon-jin] On the 21st, T&R Biofab's stock price surged to the daily limit after news broke that the company had developed 3D bioprinting technology used for liver transplantation.
On that day, T&R Biofab opened trading at 60,600 KRW, up 29.90% from the previous day. This is a 52-week high. Afterwards, the stock price slightly declined and as of 9:25 AM, it was trading at 50,720 KRW, up 22.62% (10,750 KRW).
The company announced the day before that it had developed 3D bioprinting technology that simultaneously prints liver cells and blood vessels to improve in vivo transplantation efficiency.
This technology was jointly developed by T&R Biofab, Korea Polytechnic University, and Konkuk University research teams. It is a technique that wraps cells for in vivo transplantation with vascular endothelial cells like packaging to efficiently engraft cells into tissues. It is described as a 3D printing implementation of the lobule structure observed in the liver.
In this study, it was confirmed that when liver-related cells are wrapped with vascular endothelial cells, blood vessels are formed together. Through this, the printed cell aggregates were maintained for a long period in vivo. Additionally, functions such as secretion of liver-related proteins and enzymes were enhanced, showing closer resemblance to the human liver.
The company confirmed through animal experiments that when the developed aggregates were transplanted, surrounding blood vessels connected with the aggregates, aiding the engraftment of the cell transplant.
Using a 3D bioprinter to produce cell aggregates allows for rapid production with uniform shapes. Therefore, it is expected that commercialization will be easier through mass production.
The results were published in the international academic journal Advanced Materials.
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