LAUSR

Abstract This paper investigates the use of starch and chitosan blends for bioprinting of neural cell applications. The printability and biocompatibility of different starch to chitosan ratio bio-inks were studied. The biofabrication window paradigm was used to determine the optimum composition of bio-ink as 50% starch and 50% chitosan in terms of both printability and biocompatibility with Neuro-2a cells. This defies the conventional understanding that increasing the chitosan percentage enhances the biocompatibility. Moreover, the limitations of the conventional framework for characterizing the printability of bio-inks were identified and a revised framework based on the flattening factor was proposed. It was shown that the revised framework provides better means of characterizing the printability of bio-inks.