Tissue engineering is a biomedical engineering discipline that uses a combination of cells, engineering, materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to restore, maintain, improve, or replace different types of biological tissues. Tissue engineering often involves the use of cells placed on tissue scaffolds in the formation of new viable tissue for a medical purpose but is not limited to applications involving cells and tissue scaffolds. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance it can be considered as a field of its own.
Organ culture is the cultivation of either whole organs or parts of organs in vitro. It is a development from tissue culture methods of research, as the use of the actual in vitro organ itself allows for more accurate modelling of the functions of an organ in various states and conditions.
The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center is a public academic health science center in Dallas, Texas. With approximately 23,000 employees, more than 2,900 full-time faculty, and nearly 4 million outpatient visits per year, UT Southwestern is the largest medical school in the University of Texas System and state of Texas. The institution has been consistently ranked among the top medical schools in the United States.
Regenerative medicine deals with the "process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human or animal cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function". This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs by stimulating the body's own repair mechanisms to functionally heal previously irreparable tissues or organs.
Peter W. Zandstra, is a Canadian scientist who is the Director of the Michael Smith Laboratories at the University of British Columbia.
Anthony Atala, M.D., is an American bioengineer, urologist, and pediatric surgeon. He is the W.H. Boyce professor of urology, the founding director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina. His work focuses on the science of regenerative medicine: "a practice that aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body's own healthy cells".
The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) is a research institute affiliated with Wake Forest School of Medicine and located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, United States
Sangeeta N. Bhatia is an American biological engineer and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Bhatia's research investigates applications of micro- and nano-technology for tissue repair and regeneration. She applies ideas from computer technology and engineering to the design of miniaturized biomedical tools for the study and treatment of diseases, in particular liver disease, hepatitis, malaria and cancer.
In tissue engineering, neo-organ is the final structure of a procedure based on transplantation consisting of endogenous stem/progenitor cells grown ex vivo within predesigned matrix scaffolds. Current organ donation faces the problems of patients waiting to match for an organ and the possible risk of the patient's body rejecting the organ. Neo-organs are being researched as a solution to those problems with organ donation. Suitable methods for creating neo-organs are still under development. One experimental method is using adult stem cells, which use the patients own stem cells for organ donation. Currently this method can be combined with decellularization, which uses a donor organ for structural support but removes the donors cells from the organ. Similarly, the concept of 3-D bioprinting organs has shown experimental success in printing bioink layers that mimic the layer of organ tissues. However, these bioinks do not provide structural support like a donor organ. Current methods of clinically successful neo-organs use a combination of decellularized donor organs, along with adult stem cells of the organ recipient to account for both the structural support of a donor organ and the personalization of the organ for each individual patient to reduce the chance of rejection.
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic is a Serbian American biomedical engineer and university professor. She is a University Professor at Columbia University, as well as the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical Sciences. She also heads the laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia University. She is part of the faculty at the Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Human Development, both found at Columbia University. She is also an honorary professor at the Faculty of Technology and Metallurgy at the University of Belgrade, an honorary professor at the University of Novi Sad, and an adjunct professor at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Tufts University.
M. Korkut Uygun is a Turkish chemical engineer and a medical researcher.
Decellularization is the process used in biomedical engineering to isolate the extracellular matrix (ECM) of a tissue from its inhabiting cells, leaving an ECM scaffold of the original tissue, which can be used in artificial organ and tissue regeneration. Organ and tissue transplantation treat a variety of medical problems, ranging from end organ failure to cosmetic surgery. One of the greatest limitations to organ transplantation derives from organ rejection caused by antibodies of the transplant recipient reacting to donor antigens on cell surfaces within the donor organ. Because of unfavorable immune responses, transplant patients suffer a lifetime taking immunosuppressing medication. Stephen F. Badylak pioneered the process of decellularization at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. This process creates a natural biomaterial to act as a scaffold for cell growth, differentiation and tissue development. By recellularizing an ECM scaffold with a patient’s own cells, the adverse immune response is eliminated. Nowadays, commercially available ECM scaffolds are available for a wide variety of tissue engineering. Using peracetic acid to decellularize ECM scaffolds have been found to be false and only disinfects the tissue.
A bioartificial heart is an engineered heart that contains the extracellular structure of a decellularized heart and cellular components from a different source. Such hearts are of particular interest for therapy as well as research into heart disease. The first bioartificial hearts were created in 2008 using cadaveric rat hearts. In 2014, human-sized bioartificial pig hearts were constructed. Bioartificial hearts have not been developed yet for clinical use, although the recellularization of porcine hearts with human cells opens the door to xenotransplantation.
Margaret (“Peggy”) A. Goodell is an American scientist working in the field of stem cell research. Goodell is Chair of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Baylor College of Medicine, Director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine (STaR) Center, and a member of the National Academy of Medicine. She is best known for her discovery of a novel method to isolate adult stem cells.
Regeneration in humans is the regrowth of lost tissues or organs in response to injury. This is in contrast to wound healing, or partial regeneration, which involves closing up the injury site with some gradation of scar tissue. Some tissues such as skin, the vas deferens, and large organs including the liver can regrow quite readily, while others have been thought to have little or no capacity for regeneration following an injury.
Charles Alfred "Chuck" Vacanti is a researcher in tissue engineering and stem cells and the Vandam/Covino Professor of Anesthesiology, Emeritus, at Harvard Medical School. He is a former head of the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Massachusetts and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, now retired.
Nina Marie Tandon is an American biomedical engineer. She is the CEO and co-founder of EpiBone. She currently serves as an adjunct professor of Electrical Engineering at Cooper Union and is a senior fellow at the Lab for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia. She was a 2011 TED Fellow and a 2012 senior TED Fellow.
Laura E. Niklason is a physician, professor and internationally recognized researcher in vascular and lung tissue engineering. She is the Nicholas M. Greene Professor of Anesthesiology and Biomedical Engineering at Yale University and co-founder, chief executive officer and president of Humacyte, a regenerative medicine company developing bioengineered human tissues.
Milica Radisic is a Serbian Canadian tissue engineer, academic and researcher. She is a professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. She co-founded TARA Biosystems and is a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute.
Katja Schenke-Layland is the Professor of Medical Technologies and Regenerative Medicine, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department for Medical Technologies and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Tübingen. She is the Director of the Natural and Medical Sciences Institute at the University of Tübingen in Reutlingen (NMI), Study Dean of Medical Technologies at the University of Tübingen, and Founding Director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at the Medical Faculty of the University Tübingen. She is also the Founding Director of the 3R Center for In Vitro Models and Alternatives to Animal Testing Tübingen.
