Reviewed by Lexie CornerApr 7 2025
A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has created a technique to create customized gingival (gum) tissue grafts using a novel fusion of 3D bioprinting and artificial intelligence (AI).
Assistant Professor Gopu Sriram (left) and Dr Jacob Chew (middle) from NUS Faculty of Dentistry, together with Professor Dean Ho (right) from the Department of Biomedical Engineering in the College of Design and Engineering at NUS, showcasing their groundbreaking work on AI-driven 3D bioprinting for personalized gingival tissue grafts. The team’s novel approach seeks to make dental procedures less invasive while enhancing patient outcomes. Image Credit: National University of Singapore (NUS)
Led by Assistant Professor Gopu Sriram from the NUS Faculty of Dentistry, the team's approach offers a customizable and less invasive alternative to traditional grafting methods. These methods often require harvesting tissue from the patient’s mouth, which can be uncomfortable and is limited by the availability of suitable tissue.
The 3D bioprinting and AI-enabled technique has the potential to improve the effectiveness of key dental procedures, such as addressing gum abnormalities resulting from periodontal disease or complications with dental implants. By enabling the precise creation of tissue structures tailored to individual patients, this technology could significantly improve treatment outcomes, reduce patient discomfort, and minimize complications such as infections during recovery.
The team’s work was supported by grants from the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC) and the National University Health System (NUHS).
Turbocharging the Bioprinting Process With AI
Gum tissue grafts are essential in dental care, particularly for treating mucogingival abnormalities, such as gum recession and issues resulting from periodontal disease or dental implants. These grafts are typically harvested from the patient's mouth. While effective, the procedure has significant drawbacks, including patient discomfort, limited tissue availability, and an increased risk of postoperative complications.
To address these challenges, the researchers used 3D bioprinting, a technology that allows for the creation of custom tissue transplants tailored to the specific dimensions of a patient’s lesion. They developed a customized bio-ink that encourages healthy cell growth while ensuring the material can be precisely printed and maintain its shape and structure.
However, the success of 3D bioprinting depends heavily on the conditions during the printing process. Factors such as extrusion pressure, print speed, nozzle size, bio-ink viscosity, and printhead temperature all significantly influence the final properties and performance of the printed tissue. Traditionally, these parameters have been adjusted through time-consuming manual trial-and-error experiments, requiring considerable time and resources.
To speed up the 3D bioprinting process, we integrated AI into our workflow to address this critical bottleneck.
Dean Ho, Professor, Study Co-Corresponding Author and Head, Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore
“This approach greatly streamlines the process by reducing the number of experiments needed to optimize the bioprinting parameters—from potentially thousands to just 25 combinations,” said Prof. Ho, who is also Director of the Institute for Digital Medicine (WisDM) at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, and N.1 Institute for Health (N.1) at NUS.
The team’s AI-driven method provides a notable increase in efficiency, saving both time and resources while ensuring the production of tissue structures with precise dimensions and structural integrity.
Our study is among the first to specifically integrate 3D bioprinting and AI technologies for the biofabrication of customized oral soft tissue constructs. 3D bioprinting is by far more challenging than conventional 3D printing because it involves living cells, which introduce a host of complexities to the printing process.
Sriram, Assistant Professor and Thrust Co-Lead, Dental and Craniofacial 3DP Applications, Centre for Additive Manufacturing (AM.NUS), NUS
The bioprinted gum tissue grafts showed strong biomimetic properties, with over 90 % cell viability immediately after printing and throughout an 18-day culture period. The grafts maintained their shape and structural integrity, with histological studies indicating the presence of essential proteins and a multi-layered structure resembling natural gum tissue.
The Future of Dental Care
The ability to create personalized gum tissue grafts with improved efficiency, structural integrity, and biomimetic qualities has the potential to address persistent clinical issues related to periodontal disease and dental implants.
“This research demonstrates how AI and 3D bioprinting can converge to solve complex medical problems through precision medicine. By optimizing tissue grafts for individual patients, we can reduce the invasiveness of dental procedures while ensuring better healing and recovery,” added Sriram.
The implications of this study extend beyond dentistry.
“3D bioprinting allows us to create tissue grafts that precisely match the dimensions of a patient’s wounds, potentially reducing or eliminating the need to harvest tissue from the patient’s body,” continued Sriram.
Dr. Jacob Chew, a periodontist, co-investigator of the study, and Academic Fellow at NUS Faculty of Dentistry, explained, “This level of customization minimizes graft distortion and tension during wound closure, reducing the risk of complications, surgery time, and discomfort to the patients.”
Additionally, the scarless healing properties of oral tissue offer a unique benefit, as findings from this study could lead to the development of similar grafts for other barrier tissues, such as skin, potentially aiding in scarless wound healing.
Future research will focus on translating these findings from bench to bedside. The team plans to conduct in vivo tests to assess the integration and stability of the grafts in oral settings. They also aim to explore the incorporation of blood vessels into the grafts using multi-material bioprinting to create more complex and functional structures.
The researchers expect these advancements to further the field of regenerative dentistry and open up new possibilities in tissue engineering.
Journal Reference:
Dai, Y., et al. (2025) 3D Bioprinting and Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Biofabrication of Personalized Oral Soft Tissue Constructs. Advanced Healthcare Materials. doi.org/10.1002/adhm.202402727