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Researchers From McGill University and Drexel University Demonstrate Proboscis of Female Mosquitoes Can Print in Finer Detail Than Expensive and Fragile Commercial Tips

In a redeeming development for one of nature’s most universally denounced pests, researchers from McGill and Drexel Universities have discovered that mosquito stingers might one day be used for high-definition 3D bioprinting. Reported in the journal Science Advances, the findings demonstrated how the needle-like structure, called a proboscis, that mosquitoes use to extract blood, when repurposed as a tip for a 3D printer, can extrude lines finer than a human hair — surpassing commercially available 3D printing tips.

The discovery could ultimately enable precision fabrication of microscopic structures and tissue samples used in regenerative medicine, drug screening and cancer treatment. And do it at a fraction of the cost of top-of-the-line tips.

“Mosquito proboscides let us print extremely small, precise structures that are difficult or very expensive to produce with conventional tools,” said Changhong Cao, PhD, an assistant professor at McGill and Canada Research Chair in Small-Scale Materials and Manufacturing, who was a co-author of the research. “Since biological nozzles are biodegradable, we can repurpose materials that would otherwise be discarded.”

The study, which laid out a process the researchers call “3D necroprinting” — using a non-living biological structure as an advanced manufacturing tool — was led by McGill graduate student Justin Puma. He was also involved in a previous study using a mosquito proboscis for biomimetic purposes that established a foundation for this research.

Building Better Models
One of the most promising applications of 3D printing, or additive manufacturing, that has improved over the last decade is printing biological structures.Researchers at Drexel pioneered the process, creating a device that could print tumors for cancer treatment. But to advance the field, researchers have been refining various components of the process to capture the subtle differences in healthy tissues and cancerous tumors at the cellular level.

“Evolutions in bioprinting are helping medical researchers develop unique approaches to treatment,” said Megan Creighton, PhD, an assistant professor in Drexel’s College of Engineering, who was a co-author of the paper. “The more precisely we can make these samples to mimic biological tissue and structures with improved 3D bioprinting, the more accurate our testing and ability to design more effective treatments. This is an exciting, if unexpected, development that could help to advance this line of research in interesting new directions.”

https://drexel.edu/news/archive/2026/January/mosquito-proboscis-3D-printing