ABSTRACT

Tissue repair has been an area of great interest in the medical Œeld due to the massive demands stemming from patients worldwide suffering from injuries and diseases that necessitate repair or replacement of various tissues such as skin, bones, and internal organs. For example, in the United States, 500,000 burn patients each year require hospitalization (American Burn Association 2009), more than 40 million individuals are at high risk of bone fracture due to osteoporosis or low bone mass (NIH Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center 2011), and more than 110,000 patients wait for life-saving organ transplants, whereas only 24,000 transplantations were performed in 2010 (United Network for Organ Sharing 2010). Many of these conditions are dangerous for patients, as they lose vital body functions, and therefore, it is critical that any lost functions are restored fully and in a timely manner. Accordingly, the market for medical care is large, such as the pharmaceutical sector, which has an annual sales of $750 billion (Organization

11.1 New Frontiers for Tissue Regeneration ........................................................ 229 11.2 Electrospinning Technology .........................................................................230 11.3 Materials .......................................................................................................234 11.4 Toward Active NanoŒber Scaffolds: Systems Design Approach .................. 238

11.4.1 Methods for Fabricating Active NanoŒber Scaffolds ....................... 238 11.4.2 Incorporation of Drugs and Functional Elements ............................240