Repairing and regenerating damaged tissues or organs, and restoring their functioning has been the ultimate aim of medical innovations. 'Reviving healthcare' blends tissue engineering with alternative techniques such as hydrogels, which have emerged as vital tools in modern medicine. Additive manufacturing (AM) is a practical manufacturing revolution that uses building strategies like molding as a viable solution for precise hydrogel manufacturing. Recent advances in this technology have led to the successful manufacturing of hydrogels with enhanced reproducibility, accuracy, precision, and ease of fabrication. Hydrogels continue to metamorphose as the vital compatible bio-ink matrix for AM. AM hydrogels have paved the way for complex 3D/4D hydrogels that can be loaded with drugs or cells. Bio-mimicking 3D cell cultures designed via hydrogel-based AM is a groundbreaking in-vivo assessment tool in biomedical trials. This brief review focuses on preparations and applications of additively manufactured hydrogels in the biomedical spectrum, such as targeted drug delivery, 3D-cell culture, numerous regenerative strategies, biosensing, bioprinting, and cancer therapies. Prevalent AM techniques like extrusion, inkjet, digital light processing, and stereo-lithography have been explored with their setup and methodology to yield functional hydrogels. The perspectives, limitations, and the possible prospects of AM hydrogels have been critically examined in this study.

Department of Chemistry Amity Institute of Applied Sciences Amity University Noida UP India

Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science New Jersey Institute of Technology Newark NJ 07102 United States

Department of Medical Laboratory Science and Biotechnology College of Health Sciences Kaohsiung Medical University Kaohsiung Taiwan

Department of Medicinal and Applied Chemistry Kaohsiung Medical University Kaohsiung City 804 Taiwan

Department of Medicinal and Applied Chemistry Kaohsiung Medical University Kaohsiung City 807 Taiwan

Department of Medicinal and Applied Chemistry Kaohsiung Medical University Kaohsiung City 807 Taiwan; Department of Computational Biology Institute of Bioinformatics Saveetha School of Engineering Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences Chennai 602105 Tamil Nadu India

Division of Gastroenterology Department of Internal Medicine Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital Kaohsiung Medical University Kaohsiung City Taiwan

Institute of Environmental Engineering National Sun Yat sen University Kaohsiung City 804 Taiwan

Laboratory of Bio Physio Sensors and Nanobioengineering School of Biochemical Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Varanasi Uttar Pradesh India

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences National Health Research Institutes Taichung City Taiwan

New Technologies Research Centre University of West Bohemia Univerzitní 2732 8 30100 Plzeň Czech Republic

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