Biomanufacturing for tissue engineering: Present and future trends

Tissue engineering, often referred to as regenerative medicine and reparative medicine, is an interdisciplinary field that necessitates the combined effort of cell biologists, engineers, material scientists, mathematicians, geneticists, and clinicians toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue function. It has emerged as a rapidly expanding approach to address the organ shortage problem and comprises tissue regeneration and organ substitution. Cells placed on/or within constructs is the most common strategy in tissue engineering. Successful cell seeding depends on fast attachment of cell to scaffolds, high cell survival and uniform cell distribution. The seeding time is strongly dependent on the scaffold material and architecture. Scaffolds provide an initial biochemical substrate for the novel tissue until cells can produce their own extra-cellular matrix (ECM). Thus scaffolds not only define the 3D space for the formation of new tissues, but also serve to ...