Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
29.1 Introduction
To bring tissue engineering/regenerative medicine into reality, it
is crucial to su
ciently advance and combine the three pillars,
that is, cells, signaling molecules, and scaffolds.
1
However great the
advancement in the basic research on the first two may appear
to be in the recent years, cells and signaling molecules have lim-
itations to being clinically applied without the help of scaffolds.
In addition, in some tissues, including the skeletal system, the
scaffolds alone appear to be able to provide treatment to some
extent, provided that the performance of the scaffolds is su
ciently
improved.
Demand characteristics for the tissue engineering scaffolds have
distinctive features in comparison with those for other industrial
ones.
2
The demand characteristics for the former are defined not
onlybythepropertiesofthescaffoldmaterialsbutalsobytheinter-
actionsofthescaffoldmaterialswiththelivingbody,whilethosefor
the latter are mainly defined by the properties of the materials. The
demand characteristics can be categorized into at least six items:
mechanicalstrength,workability,biocompatibility,biodegradability,
biosafety, and regeneration inductivity (Table 29.1). The first two
itemscanbewellpredictedbytheinformationonthescaffoldmate-
rials,thankstothegreatachievementofmaterialsscience.Thethird,
fourth, and fifth items can never be fully predicted by the study of
the scaffold materials alone at this moment. We can obtain infor-
mation on these three only by studying the interactions of the scaf-
fold materials with the living body; the study usually consists of
Table 29.1. Demand characteristics for tissue
engineering scaffolds.
Items
Major source of prediction
1. Mechanicalstrength
Material property
2. Workability
Material property
3. Biocompatibility
Interaction with living body
4. Biodegradability
Interaction with living body
5. Biosafety
Interaction with living body
6. Regeneration inductivity
Biology
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