Currently, the liver cancer leads to the highest morbidity among all kinds of cancers in the world. Due to the shortage of liver donors for transplantation, the surgical resection is still considered as one of the most effective treatments for benign and malignant liver tumors. However, the postoperative liver failure has been found to be the most serious complication of a large number of patients with liver resection. 

In this study, a scaffold with liver cells was designed with a serrated construct and fabricated as the artificial liver support system, which is used to replace the cutting off liver part to perform some of the functions of synthesis and metabolism. A multi-material digital light processing (DLP) technology was developed to manufacture the artificial liver support system. Gelatin methacryloyl (GelMA) was used as the cell-laden bioink, where dECM (decellularized extracellular matrix) was also added; and the hiHep cells were printed with GelMA/dECM hydrogels to fabricate designed constructs. By measuring the printing resolution and the cell viability after printing, the optimized printing parameters and formula of GelMA/dECM bioink were obtained. It should be noticed that dECM was found to be helpful for both cell viability and printability of the bioink. The printed artificial liver support system was found to have the similar function with original liver to synthesize albumin and metabolize urea which provided a promising approach to solve liver failure for liver function recovery and regeneration.