Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
4
TISSUE ENGINEERING: MULTISCALED
REPRESENTATION OF TISSUE
ARCHITECTURE AND FUNCTION
Mohammad R. Kaazempur-Mofrad
Department of Bioengineering, University of California at Berkeley
Eli J. Weinberg and Jeffrey T. Borenstein
Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Joseph P. Vacanti
Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Replacement of a lost or failed organ is a long-standing problem in medicine. Research in
the field of tissue engineering is progressing rapidly towards the replacement of numer-
ous organs. Each organ is a complex system, and analysis of an organ requires under-
standing of phenomena over a range of length scale. This chapter provides an overview
of the multiscale analysis currently used and under development in the field of tissue en-
gineering.
1.
INTRODUCTION
The loss or failure of a functioning organ can sometimes only be treated by
replacement of the entire organ. As long as humans have practiced medicine, we
have used all available technologies to improve our methods of organ replace-
ment. Ancient cultures whose most advanced materials were wood and leather
used these to fabricate leg prostheses. Developments in fine metalworking led to
Address correspondence to: Mohammad Reza Kaazempur-Mofrad, Department of Bioengineering,
University of California, Berkeley, 483 Evans Hall #1762, Berkeley, CA 94720 (mofrad@berkeley.
edu).
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