Damage: Too Few Cells - General Loss
Therapy: Tissue Engineering
Regenerative medicine aims to utilize the innate regenerative ability existent in our bodies for a therapeutic outcome. In contrast to drug therapies that alleviate the disease symptoms, interventions based on regenerative approaches aim to induce normal, functional tissues at sites where the tissue integrity is compromised. Regenerative approaches have relied on three fundamental elements for intervention, namely (i) biomaterial scaffolds acting as a mimic of extracellular matrix, (ii) growth factors capable of modulating a wide variety of cellular activities, and (iii) specific cells ultimately responsible for the establishment of the normal tissue structure. Designing scaffolds tailored for growth factors and/or cell delivery has been a fruitful endeavor; such systems have been utilized ex vivo to construct functional tissues (bone, cartilage, liver, bladder, etc), as well as be implanted in clinics to induce new tissue growth, in particular functional (i.e., load-bearing) bone tissue. This presentation will provide an overview of these efforts, highlighting the critical requirements of scaffold design for a functional outcome. Current state-of-the-art on engineering of various tissues will be provided.
526 Chemical and Materials Engineering Building
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Faculty of Engineering,
University of Alberta, Edmonton
T6G 2G6
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