Honey-loaded 3D bioprinted scaffolds: A promising fabrication with wound healing properties

Honey is a topical therapeutic drug clinically studied for wound healing because of its physical properties and chemical constituents. As a bioactive loaded in engineered biomaterials, honey is an antioxidant, antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral, and other clinical benefits. Honey is a promising solution to combat biofilm and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which are significant healthcare burdens. In modern technology, rapid prototyping or additive manufacturing (AM) has experienced essential developments in biomedical applications to easily, cheaply, and quickly print 3D scaffold designs with complex geometries. This article reviews the prospects of honey to design biocompatible wound dressing via 3D bio-printing. Although it has shown biological effects, adding honey to the bio-ink formulation affects the printability and mechanical properties of biocompatible 3D scaffolds. Some crucial aspects must be considered when designing honey-enriched wound dressings, e.g., raw materials toxicity, honey-biomaterials compatibility, printability, dosage, chemical composition, dressing physical-chemical properties, shelf life, and ideal wound dressing requirements. Adding antioxidant agents and determining the appropriate honey concentration are challenges to reducing the pro-oxidative action. The most important thing is maintaining the pharmaceutical effects after the synthesis process to heal wounds.