The experimental setup was developed by a team at Harvard University led by Prof. Jennifer Lewis, Prof. David Clarke and postdoctoral student Natalie Larson.

Its printhead incorporates four separate cartridges, each one of which can contain a different "ink" (photo-curable viscous printing material). All four cartridges feed into one nozzle, which extrudes a single filament made up of continuous strands of all the inks.

Because the nozzle rotates throughout the extrusion process, the strands spiral around one another in a twisting helical pattern. This same pattern is often seen in nature, where it allows muscle fibers to contract, and plant stems to change shape. Of course, it's also the form taken by DNA strands.