Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 8
PHOTOCURABLE HYDROGEL FOR
TISSUE REGENERATION
Min Soo Bae and Il Keun Kwon
*
Department of Maxillofacial Biomedical Engineering and
Institute of Oral Biology, School of Dentistry,
Kyung Hee University, 1 Hoegi-dong,
Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul 130-701, South Korea
*kwoni@khu.ac.kr
8.1 Introduction
An exciting and revolutionary strategy to treat patients who need
new organs or tissues is the engineering of man-made organs or
tissues (Fig. 8.1). Tissues or organs can be potentially engineered
with a number of different strategies. Tissue-specific cells are iso-
lated from a small tissue biopsy from the patient and harvested
in
vitro
.Thecellsaresubsequentlymixedintothree-dimensionalpoly-
mer scaffolds that act like the natural extracellular matrices found
in tissues. These scaffolds deliver the cells to the desired site in the
patient's body, provide a space for new tissue formation, and poten-
tially control the structure and function of the engineered tissue.
1
,
2
Avarietyoftissuesarebeingengineeredusingthisapproach,includ-
ing fabricated artery, bladder, skin, cartilage, bone, ligament, and
Search WWH ::
Custom Search