Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering can be defined as an interdisciplinary field that utilizes the principles of engineering and life sciences for the development of biological substitutes that restore, recover, maintain, or improve the function of a tissue or an entire organ. The technique employs scaffold matrices to fill the tissue void, to provide structural support and to deliver growth factors and/or cells that are capable of forming tissues within the body, upon transplantation. The construction of an engineered tissue in vitro requires the use of cells to fill matrices and produce matrix resembling that of the native tissue. The main successes in this area have come from the use of primary cells, taken from the subject, and used in unification with scaffolds to produce tissue for re-implantation.