ABSTRACT
A long-standing goal of tissue engineering has been to create functional tissues, ideally by promoting the regenerative capacity of a patient’s autologous cells by controlling cellular response. Regardless of whether this is achieved by using artificial scaffolds or naturally derived extracellular matrices, the engineered tissue must be able to support the necessary physiological loads during the remodeling processes that ultimately lead to generation of the functional tissue. While there has been tremendous progress in engineering a number of tissue systems, namely skin replacements [1-3], an incomplete understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control cell behavior has led to limited clinical success. Specifically, there are many open questions as to how cell-biomaterial interactions impact cellular and ultimately tissue phenotype [4,5].
