# Development of An Optoelectronically Active Bioink

> **NIH NIH R21** · UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON · 2020 · $107,759

## Abstract

Project Summary
As one of the most vital organs, the heart functions as a potent biological pump that actively delivers/recycles
the blood towards/from all other organs through the vascular system. It has always been a focus in healing an
injured or diseased heart through tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. With many years of
endeavors, the field of cardiac tissue engineering has seen tremendous progress in fabricating functional
cardiac tissues that to a great extent recapitulate the biology of the heart, but challenges remain. The
alignment of cardiomyocytes and their organization into bundles characterized by spontaneous and
synchronous contraction complicate the development of biologically relevant cardiac tissues. Maturation and
contraction of the cardiomyocytes poses another major obstacle. The overall goal of this proposed project is to
develop an optoelectronically active bioink that will enable effective maturation and on-demand pacing of the
bioprinted cardiac tissues through untethered and remote photo-illumination, in order to address the unmet
urgent needs in bioprinting cardiac tissues with embedded, remote stimulation/pacing functions. The bioink will
allow for electrical conversion of photoenergy through integration of μ-solar cells in the form of ultra-thin pellets
for in situ photo induced electrical stimulation, where the pellets will also be designed to be biodegradable to
match the rate of tissue maturation.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10042762
- **Project number:** 1R21EB030257-01
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Cunjiang Yu
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $107,759
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-09-01 → 2021-12-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10042762

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10042762, Development of An Optoelectronically Active Bioink (1R21EB030257-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10042762. Licensed CC0.

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