Tissue Engineering

Gundula Schulze-Tanzil

doi:10.4172/2153-0777.S2-e001

ISSN: 2153-0777

Journal of Bioengineering and Bioelectronics

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Tissue Engineering

Gundula Schulze-Tanzil^*
Department of Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery, Charité-University of Medicine, Germany
Corresponding Author :	Gundula Schulze-Tanzil Department of Trauma and Reconstructive Surgery Charité-University of Medicine, Germany E-Mail: schulze-tanzil@charite.de
Received July 02, 2012; Accepted July 05, 2012; Published July 09, 2012
Citation: Schulze-Tanzil G (2012) Tissue Engineering.J Biochip Tissue chip S2:e001. doi:10.4172/2153-0777.S2-e001
Copyright: © 2012 Schulze-Tanzil G. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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Tissue Engineering (TE) comprises various methodical approaches to amplify and utilize tissue cells in vitro for implantation into the patient to cure, replace or reconstruct damaged tissues or organs and restore their functions. Meanwhile, upcoming TE research activities include nearly every human tissue among them the skin, musculoskeletal, cardiovascular, fat, nerve tissue and several parenchyma organs. However, many unsolved difficulties are associated with the aim to rebuild complex mammalian tissues or organs and to expand differentiated primary cells in vitro. It remains a permanent challenge in TE to mimic the natural histological tissue architecture, its functional structure and biochemical composition. Further, both the histological and functional integration of tissue engineered grafts into the host tissue has to be achieved and sufficient access to nutrition must be rapidly established in vivo. Compared with the use of lots of natural or synthetic biomimetic polymers as a supporting scaffold for TE, an easier manageable approach to restore complex organs such as lung, liver and kidney is the use of a decellularized natural ECM as a guiding scaffold for neotissue organization [1-3].

In view of the bulk of scientific literature dealing with TE the question arises whether a novel special issue on TE is really needed. The TE research field is one of the most rapidly expanding research areas, reflecting the hope of many medical disciplines to create and utilize TE-based therapeutic strategies. Continuously advanced TE methods remain valuable tools in regenerative medicine. Several high-grade publications of the recent years document the intriguing interest in TE [1,2,4]. Some fascinating approaches entered already the clinical routine since many years or several decades looking only at few examples such as skin replacement (Rostislav V et al.), matrix assisted autologous chondrocyte transplantation [5], rotator cuff tendon reconstruction using decellularized xenogenic or allogenic tissues [6] or the reconstruction of heart valves [7]. A successful translation of TE approaches into clinics requires interdisciplinary co-work between physicians and basic scientists. Once established, clinical middleand long-term outcome has to be carefully evaluated to get concise information usable for further optimization of TE-based therapeutic strategies. These results could necessitate going back from the bedside to the bench. TE comprises a highly interdisciplinary research field which requires an intimate interaction between medicine, cell and developmental biology, immunology, material sciences, biotechnology, Biophysics, bioinformatics and several other specific scientific areas. To face the critical comment that many topics in TE are already thoroughly discussed in several other scientific journals one should strongly consider that the accumulating huge bulk of published TE discoveries from all fields require a continuous up-dating, critical revision and specific accentuation. Comprehensive review articles provide a solid basis for the exchange of interdisciplinary expert knowledge between experienced scientists. Moreover they are particularly important for the education of young academics in the TE field. A thematic issue is valuable to summarize and discuss many up-to-date topics in this important and rapidly developing research field of TE. Therefore, this special thematic issue should offer a platform for the scientific “crossover” of some separate areas in TE.

It is a pleasure to me to introduce this interesting selection of contributions here, provided by several experts in the tissue engineering research field. My concluding remark is to emphasize my hope that this unique issue will stimulate and inspirit the ongoing TE research.

Finally, as an Editor of this thematic issue on TE, I would like to appreciate all the ideas and efforts of the authors for preparing and revising their manuscripts included in this issue. Additionally, I would like to thank deeply all of the experts who reviewed the submitted manuscripts, evaluated them for inclusion and guided the authors. I am sure that many researchers in the TE topic will be interested in these newsworthy articles in this thematic issue which will help them for their ongoing research activities.

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