McMaster researchers have developed a new material that could accelerate medical research and drug discovery by making it easier to 3D print soft, realistic tissue models. 

Developed by McMaster-backed Tessella Biosciences, the bioink can be used to print flexible, stable, three-dimensional structures at body temperature, an advantage over conventional bioinks that require low temperatures and often result in 3D shapes that collapse into puddles, says Jose Moran-Mirabal, co-founder and professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.  

The McMaster startup emerged from a research problem facing co-founder Jeremy Hirota, an associate professor of medicine who studies lung diseases like COPD and pulmonary fibrosis.  

“Lungs breathe. They open and close with every breath we take,” says Hirota, who is a member of the Firestone Institute for Respiratory Health at the Research Institute of St. Joe’s.  

“But 95 to 99 per cent of the research we do in the lab is done on hard plastic dishes, whether it’s a petri dish or a tissue culture plate.”  

“It doesn’t take a scientist to understand that this hard plastic is not what your lungs are.” 

The challenge of finding a more realistic lung model to work with prompted Hirota to seek out Moran-Mirabal, who looped in co-founder David Gonzalez Martinez, a Vanier Scholar and PhD student in his lab.  

The three co-founders launched Tessella Biosciences in 2024 with a new bioink that allows researchers to create 3D models of the lung “that could stretch and breathe just like your lungs,” says Hirota.  

While 3D printing has long been used to create hard, durable parts, researchers are now adapting the technology to print soft, flexible materials that mimic living tissue.  

Tessella’s bioink structures simulate how real tissue works in the body, so they can test drugs or understand how human cells interact in a more realistic way. 

Earlier this year, Moran-Mirabal was awarded McMaster’s Professor Entrepreneurship Fellowship. The Faculty of Science contributed $50,000 in pre-seed funding and, in partnership with the Provost’s Office and the McMaster Entrepreneurship Academy, awarded Moran-Mirabal an additional $75,000.  

Gonzalez Martinez says taking on a new role as an entrepreneur during his graduate studies has been rewarding. “The feeling of moving something out of the lab that will really make an impact on people is amazing,” he says.  

“Here at McMaster, we have the right environment to take something interesting that we find in the lab and create something completely new, something that is marketable, and ensuring people can benefit from the research that we do here.” 

In the future, the team envisions creating implantable tissues like skin grafts for burn victims or repairing damaged lungs. Further down the road, their hope is to 3D print organs or “replacement parts” for humans, says Moran-Mirabal. 

“I know that sounds a little bit like science fiction, but when you think about the tissue, you could replace a small portion of the tissue and just put in something that allows the tissue to regrow and heal itself,” says Moran-Mirabal.  

“Whereas if you think about the most complex aspect of 3D printing, what that could produce in the future, it could be something like a whole organ.” 

The beauty of Tessella’s advanced bioinks is they are “plug-and-play” and allow researchers to print “high-fidelity structures in under an hour,” says Moran-Mirabal.  

Hirota says the university’s support helped him look beyond traditional academic activities, like research papers and lectures, to consider how entrepreneurship can affect patient care.  

“The opportunity to take the research further and bring it into market through a startup company, and follow that research continuum further and make sure that those inventions, those discoveries, actually impact society … I felt like that was just connecting the dots and taking it as far as I possibly can.”