ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the bioengineered human hair follicle. It describes some technical details and the advantages and disadvantages of bioprinting methods, as there are three types of bioprinting fabrication methods: laser based, extrusion based, and inkjet based. 3-D bioprinting is the biological counterpart of industrial 3-D printing, fabricating biologically compatible solid tissues that mimic the functions of natural biological tissues. A similar method that also utilizes a micro-nozzle to lay bioink on scaffold platforms is extrusion-based bioprinting. The bioink for the dermis base contains collagen gel and human foreskin–derived dermal fibroblasts. After they learned that 3-D printed skin constructs without vascularization resulted in necrosis and inability for hair growth in vivo, these researchers moved forward to conduct vascularization. The hair cycle–specific expression pattern suggests the role of versican in the induction of hair morphogenesis, the initiation of hair regeneration, and the maintenance of normal hair growth.
