Additive Manufacturing Printing Living Tissues with Light

Related Vendors

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)

SIMTOS (Seoul International Machine Tool Show)

A team from EPFL has developed a volumetric 3D printing technique. With it, the researchers managed to print a life-sized human ear from a gelatin-based hydrogel. 

Tomographic volumetric additive manufacturing (TVAM) is a 3D printing technique that uses laser light to solidify a rotating vessel filled with photosensitive resin, thereby creating the desired shape. In 2025, scientists from the Laboratory of Applied Photonic Devices (LAPD) at EPFL announced they had improved this technique by utilizing holograms to encode 3D shapes. Instead of modulating the intensity (amplitude) of light waves, as with previous methods, they modulated their alignment (phase). This allowed for a significantly greater proportion of laser power to be retained. The team developed a new platform for this holographic approach, making the TVAM technology 70 times more efficient. For the first time, a system was used to directly control the phase of a light beam within a volumetric 3D printing system.

The proven efficiency and precision of our method make it possible for the first time to bioprint tissue structures on a nearly clinical scale.

Christophe Moser, Chief of the LAPD

In their experiments, the researchers were able to solidify complete objects about one millimeter (approx. 0.04 inches)  in size within a few seconds using the new system. Objects approximately one centimeter (approx. 0.4 inches) in size required only a few minutes. Particularly remarkable is that the phase control enables holographic printing with self-healing light beams, allowing 3D objects to be produced with higher accuracy even in light-scattering media, such as those containing living cells. "The proven efficiency and precision of our method make it possible for the first time to bioprint tissue structures in almost clinical-scale dimensions," explains Christophe Moser, head of the LAPD. "We were able to print significantly larger structures than previous holographic approaches, despite increased light scattering caused by the integrated cells." The results were published in the journal *Light: Science & Applications*.

Gallery

Life-sized Human Ear

Using a 150 mW diode laser, the scientists printed a life-sized human ear—an important step toward bio-printed implants for reconstructive medicine. With a smaller printed structure (volume of 64 mm³), they also demonstrated that the integrated living cells remained viable for six days and even formed organized networks. To further improve the surface quality of the printed objects, the researchers combined the efficiency of their light system with a new strategy to reduce random light interferences ("speckle"), which can cause a grainy surface texture.

Additive Manufacturing

When the Spine Comes Out of the 3D Printer

Our method brings volumetric 3D printing closer to the production of life-sized implants and biologically compatible products—using low-power laser sources.

Maria Alvarez‑Castaño, First author and PhD candidate at the LAPD

Future work will focus on further improving projection accuracy and exploring the limits of beam shaping for printing in bioresins with high cell density. The laboratory also plans to release further advancements in TVAM platforms, including more efficient methods for direct printing on or around existing objects, as well as new techniques for more precise generation of microscopic details by predicting the behavior of chemical reactions in the resin during printing. The latter method specifically leverages holographic volumetric additive manufacturing, where objects are created solely through the projection of a hologram onto a resin vessel—entirely without rotation.