Fig. 2

Synthesis of a PLA-based fabricating mold for individual tissue blocks by integrating traditional casting and 3D printing techniques. Each tissue block was synthesized by using a 3D printed fabricating mold to effectively and stably produce a large amount of tissue blocks at a much faster time and at low cost than the previous module-making methods (A). Three different types of fabricating casting molds (50 × 30 × 2 mm³) were 3D printed using polylactic acid (PLA), and each mold can produce 15 endometrial tissue blocks at once: (1) square blocks (2 × 2 × 2 mm³), (2) rectangular blocks (2 × 2 × 4 mm³), and (3) circular blocks (2 × 2 × 2 mm³). We also conducted PLA-based 3D printing to develop a separator that can effectively release polymerized tissue blocks from the casting mold by pushing them (B). For accurate assembly of individual tissue blocks without leaking, individual tissue blocks were properly inserted into multiple empty slots on the prefabricated assembly sheet (C). The casting molds for three different types of assembly sheets (20 × 20 × 5 mm³), which contain exactly the same shape and size of slots as each tissue block, were 3D printed using PLA (D)