ABSTRACT
As described in Chapter 9, the eld of tissue engineering has proliferated over the past few decades. The conuence of engineering, biology, and medical devices has led to the development of many so-called tissueengineered products, some of which are now considered to be standard of care. Tissue engineering, as understood most generally, is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physiochemical factors to improve or replace biological functions. A major component of tissue engineering is the development of substrates or scaffolds for cell adhesion. The ultimate goal of this development is to allow controlled degradation of the substrate so that the engineered tissue can support itself. These degradable materials that are used as substrates can be categorized as natural, synthetic, or hybrid materials. Natural materials may include collagen and other naturally derived polymers. However, natural substrates in their current form suffer from the lack of necessary mechanical integrity for fabrication into scaffolds. Natural materials also tend to be limited by supply and suffer from variation based on the source. Naturally derived polymers may also be immunogenic.
