ABSTRACT
Tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary field that necessitates the combined effort of cell biologist, engineers, material scientist, mathematician, geneticists and clinicians toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve tissue function. Initially defined by Skalak and Fox as “the application of principles and methods of engineering and life sciences’ toward the fundamental understanding of structure-function relationships in normal and pathological mammalian tissues and the development of biolo-gical substitutes to restore, maintain, or improve tissue function”, is a major component of regene-rative medicine [1]. It has emerged as a rapidly expanding approach to address the organ shortage problem. In 2006, 98263 patients were waiting for organ transplantation in the USA alone [2]. At the same time the number of donors was 14756 [3]. Although clinics have tried to replace the function of failing organs mechanically or through implantation of synthetic replacements, these are often temporary solutions, not allowing the patient to completely resume normal activities. In spite of their hard efforts, infection and device rejection are serious secondary effects that may arise during such procedures causing in some cases very harmful setbacks.
