Coral polyps are known to be the ones impacted by this threat. Although the corals may only amount to about 1% part of the planet, their eradication would affect marine life. Plus, they are also used for medicinal purposes as well as food. The decrease in coral occurs due to bleaching that takes place at higher temperatures. In this scenario, the algae come out of its tissue.

Moreover, this reduction of corals in the Great Barrier reef has now left it like a shell of what it once was. And not only global warming, factors like pollution, over-fishing, and climate change are also instrumental in this case. Therefore, scientists worked on developing artificial reefs that could grow algae. Besides, they can stay riveted longer than the real ones as they are prone to environmental factors.

The goal of the project is to restore the coral reef in copious quantities across the world. Even if the corals are artificial, scientists believe they’d work well in tempting fish and baby coral polyps that will get attached to the coral. This is where natural reefs would be helped to grow. For this project, Dr. Wangpraseurt worked with Professor Shaochen Chen, a professor with expertise in nano-engineering. Professor Chen is known to have developed a rapid 3D bioprinting method at the University of California.

The replica produced was capable of functioning in the same way as the living tissues. Professor Chen said: Most of these cells will die if we were to use traditional extrusion-based or inkjet 3D printing processes because these methods take hours. It would be like keeping a fish out of the water; the cells that we work with won’t survive if kept too long out of their culture media.
Our process is high throughput and offers really fast printing speeds, so it’s compatible with human cells, animal cells, and even algae cells in this case.

Scientists also developed cup-shaped, man-made skeletons made with a polymer gel PEGDA. PEGDA is relevant here due to its biocompatibility. To your surprise, the artificial corals have the ability to capture and scatter light more than a living coral can do. Besides, they also comprise a gelatin-based polymer hydrogel, GelMA which when combined with algae cells and cellulose nano-crystals can proliferate the photo-synthesis process in corals.

Well, this step is so crucial to be taken at this point. As per the present estimation, a major part of the existing living corals in the Great Barrier Reef would disappear by the end of this decade. To this concern, if we don’t implement anything, for now, the reef would probably be affected a lot by 2050.

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