BIOE 306: Putting theory into hands-on practice in Biofabrication Lab

When Professor Megan Griebel was a bioengineering student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, she took BIOE 306, Biofabrication Lab. It was an exciting, memorable class that helped her conceptualize what she could do if she continued in the field. Today, Professor Griebel is teaching the same BIOE 306 course that inspired her as an undergraduate, and sharing the unique benefits of the course with current BIOE students. 

“It’s the course that solidified my interest in tissue engineering and cell culture, which is what I went on to do for my PhD,” Griebel said. “Not only that, but it prepared me for grad school by giving me the lab skills that I needed.” 

Those initial lab skills were developed over the diverse course modules in BIOE 306; one module is focused on teaching students how to create 3D design files on various platforms and use different types of 3D printers, while in another students learn microcontact printing techniques to control cellular microenvironments and cell behavior. In yet another unit, students use different 3D printing and fabrication techniques to create biobots, which are biological machines consisting of a 3D printed skeleton and a muscle ring fabricated from cultured cells that can move with electrical stimulation. 

“We uniquely set up our undergrads to be able to practice their lab skills, because not every bioengineering department has a class that teaches actual hands-on lab skills,” said Griebel. “Theoretical tissue engineering classes are common, but actually having a tissue engineering lab is very rare.”

It’s a practical way to allow students to not only gain hands-on experience, but also put their previous coursework and theoretical knowledge to practice. The course provides students with a unique educational opportunity that is only available in a very limited number of undergraduate bioengineering programs in the country.

“One of the best things about this class was being able to take what we learned in previous classes and actually do it,” said graduated senior Amy Lee, who took the course with Professor Cvetkovic. “Putting our skills to use here in the biofabrication lab was super nice–we could put what we’ve learned to the test.”

During that semester, students were tasked with solving current problems in neural engineering research. This meant growing human neurons from stem cells, forming them into organoids (or spheres of mature neurons), and then designing and testing multiple iterations of a 3D-printed device into which the organoids could be grown and cultured. Their projects, which varied from customizable tissue engineering organoid molds tools and devices that aided in connecting neuronal networks between organoids, addressed a range of important biomedical questions–and required a lot of hard work.

“As their instructor, I was proud to witness the ways in which this most recent class utilized their previous experiences in other classes or research labs,” said Professor Caroline Cvetkovic, who taught the course in the spring semester of 2023. “They stepped out of their comfort zones and mastered new skills to culminate in an interdisciplinary lab course that will undoubtedly serve them well in all of their future endeavors.”

There’s lots of room for the unexpected to happen in a lab that’s so wide-ranging and hands-on, but both Cvetkovic and Griebel emphasized how important it is that students have the chance to learn first-hand that science is not always predictable, as well as how to proceed when methods or results are less than perfect.

“The challenges and “failures” in a lab often force us to get creative, find a different way, and delve deeper into the mechanisms instead of making assumptions,” said Cvetkovic. “Even in an instructional setting, as engineers we have to find ways to solve the problem and move forward. The students in BIOE 306 certainly embodied this adventurous spirit and commitment to problem-solving.”

Just as it was when Griebel took the course, today BIOE 306 is an opportunity for students to take what they have learned in different classes and implement it in real world situations, and is constantly evolving to address the current needs in the field of biofabrication. It is currently offered every school year, and is open for enrollment to junior and senior undergraduate students in the Bioengineering Department.

“The biggest takeaway for me was being able to explore the approaches and the possibilities of biofabrication,” said graduated senior Tony Bian. “There’s a lot of exciting and advanced knowledge in this field that I’d never heard of in my college career. It felt like we were discussing and being a part of this really interesting, specialized field of BIOE work.”

For Griebel, it’s a chance to give students the same great experience she had when she was in the lab, and to help students recognize their potential in experiential learning

“I want my students to finish this course with a genuine interest in the field,” said Griebel. “I want them to have a sense of the many and varied possibilities of bioengineering so that they have an awareness of all of the different things that can be done in the lab.”