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Peptide Therapies Are Due for a Gut Check But if you want to construct human tissue, you will need a bioprinter, a device that can lay down living cells in patterns that are correct in exact- ing detail. Fortunately, bioprinters are becoming commonplace, and the applications that they en- able—such as 3D cell cultures—are starting to go mainstream. The global market for 3D cell cultures is poised for explosive growth. According to BCC Research, it will reach $2.2 billion by 2019. This growth, which is supported by an unprecedented pace of innovation, is a response to the increased demand for safety testing in drug discovery. Advances in 3D cellular design were show- cased at the recent 3D Models and Drug Screen- ing Conference, which was organized by the Global Technology Community. The event, which was held in Berlin, highlighted the use of bioprint- ers to construct human liver tissue; the genetic manipulation of stem cells to create mini-brains, and the development of tools and imaging see page 12 Automated room- temperature peptide synthesizers and microwave peptide synthesizers provided by Biotage come in various sizes and evince diferent degrees of sophistication, from entry-level to high-throughput confgurations. A tissue engineer at Organovo loads bioink into one of the company's bioprinters. The procedure is part of a process to generate functional 3D human tissue models for preclinical testing and drug discovery research. One such model is Organovo's exVive3D Human Liver Tissue. Christopher A. Rhodes, Ph.D., president and CEO at consulting frm Drug Delivery Experts, notes that successful oral peptide drugs have evolved by using both old and new technologies. Classically, the way to improve bioavailability of peptides has been through permeability enhance- ment. These techniques disrupt the bilayer in the gut, which permits drugs to pass rapidly into the vast vasculature underneath. "The problem with those methods is they deliver a pulsatile dose," Dr. Rhodes says. This works for some drugs but not those that require long exposure time to achieve therapeutic effectiveness. He notes that top pharmaceuti- cal companies have applied permeability Angelo DePalma, Ph.D. Peptide drugs have gone in and out of fashion during the last 30 years. With manufacturability and discovery largely solved, success will depend in large part on overcoming issues related to formulating and delivering these promising agents in oral form. Kathy Liszewski The era of three-dimensional (3D) printing has arrived—not just the 3D printing of uniform solids, but the 3D printing of hetero- geneous, living tissues. If you are content with producing inert objects, you can use the 3D printers sold at Barnes & Noble. see page 24 35 Anniversary! th Leading the Way in Life Science Technologies July 2016 GENengnews.com New Dimensions in 3D Cell Culture 6 8 18 DNA's Second Level of Information Driving Down Healthcare Spending If "Overall" Underwhelms, Try RNA-Seq 33 Aubrey de Grey: Future Trends in Aging Research 30 Homing In on Directed Imaging Platforms