Bioprinting in space and International Journal of Bioprinting stays ahead of the game

Now, bioprinting in space is no longer a dream but a reality!

Early December 2018, a magnetic three-dimensional (3D) bioprinter was successfully sent to International Space Station by Russian spacecraft Soyuz MS-11. Since then, various tissue/organ printing experiments have been conducted, and the results are expected to be released in February 2019. The scientific question whether living tissues printed under zero gravity maturates faster than that printed on earth will soon be answered. These extraordinary experiments conducted in space could shed light on new strategies of quality tissue construction while achieving rapid tissue maturation.

The other exciting news is the continued development of International Journal of Bioprinting (IJB). The table below shows the achievement of IJB in 2018. According to Clarivate Analytics, IJB is on track to be evaluated for inclusion into SCI around October 2019. When accepted, IJB will receive official impact factor in June 2020.

Web of Science (ESCI)	2017 Mock Impact Factor	5.143
	2018 Mock Impact Factor	4.429 (26 Nov 2018)
Scopus 2017 CiteScore	2017 CiteScore	N.A.
	2018 Citescore tracker	4.5 (8 Dec 2018)

In addition, five special issues have been initiated in 2019 to highlight the latest development of bioprinting technology globally. This will definitely increase the visibility of IJB in various countries. I would like to thank Makoto, Ming, Jerry, Boris, Shoufeng, and Jing for their strong support. I also welcome more special issue proposals.

• Special issue: Bioprinting in Japan (Guest Editor: Makoto Nakamura).

• Special issue: Bioprinting in the USA (Guest Editor: Ming Leu).

• Special issue: Bioprinting and biofabrication for tissue engineering in Asia (Guest Editor: Jerry Fuh).

• Special issue: Bioprinting in Germany (Guest Editor: Boris N. Chichkov).

• Special issue: Bioprinting in Europe (except Germany) (Guest Editors: Shoufeng Yang and Jing Yang).

Being one of the leading journals in bioprinting, the January 2019 issue of IJB is proud to present a total of 12 original research articles and reviews. Four of them report on a new and emerging bioprinting process, namely the electrohydrodynamic printing technology. Kolan et al. printed 3D biomimetic structures using a polymer/bioactive glass composite[1], while Sun et al. developed a microscopic image identification technique to monitor the printing process[2]. Gao and Zhou reviewed the mechanisms of electrohydrodynamic printing[3] as well its state-of-the-art designs and applications[4]. Cheptsov et al. reviewed new microorganism isolation techniques with emphasis on laser printing[5]. Khan et al. presented the optimization outcome of printing novel ultrashort peptide bioinks[6]. Moreover, Liu et al. reported a hybrid fabrication approach of printing polymer/hydrogel scaffolds but with in-process plasma treatment[7]. Similarly, Moldovan et al. reviewed the potential of hybrid biofabrication of 3D tissue analogs in future[8]. Both works suggest that hybrid bioprinting could be a new direction in research. In addition, Yang et al. reviewed additive manufacturing of bone scaffolds[9], and Mir et al. offered a perspective on how to overcome the obstacles and challenges in tissue engineering through bioprinting[10]. Finally, Rodriguez-Salvador and her colleagues, report two bibliometric studies on recent trends in bioprinting, one in the dentistry applications[11] and the other in the optical tissue phantoms[12].