Abstract
The field of tissue engineering continues to advance, sometimes in exponential leaps forward, but also sometimes at a rate that does not fulfill the promise that the field imagined a few decades ago. This review is in part a catalog of success in an effort to inform the process of innovation. Tissue engineering has recruited new technologies and developed new methods for engineering tissue constructs that can be used to mitigate or model disease states for study. Key to this antecedent statement is that the scientific effort must be anchored in the needs of a disease state and be working toward a functional product in regenerative medicine. It is this focus on the wildly important ideas coupled with partnered research efforts within both academia and industry that have shown most translational potential. The field continues to thrive and among the most important recent developments are the use of three-dimensional bioprinting, organ-on-a-chip, and induced pluripotent stem cell technologies that warrant special attention. Developments in the aforementioned areas as well as future directions are highlighted in this article. Although several early efforts have not come to fruition, there are good examples of commercial profitability that merit continued investment in tissue engineering. Tissue engineering led to the development of new methods for regenerative medicine and disease models. Among the most important recent developments in tissue engineering are the use of three-dimensional bioprinting, organ-on-a-chip, and induced pluripotent stem cell technologies. These technologies and an understanding of them will have impact on the success of tissue engineering and its translation to regenerative medicine. Continued investment in tissue engineering will yield products and therapeutics, with both commercial importance and simultaneous disease mitigation.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 633-664 |
| Number of pages | 32 |
| Journal | Tissue Engineering - Part B: Reviews |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 1 2022 |
Funding
Many initial product concepts emerge from basic science research, largely supported by federal grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Science Foundation (NSF). These funding mechanisms explicitly favor innovation, which may come at the cost of advancing simpler effective approaches. In addition, for some areas, the patent landscape is crowded and complicated requiring some product concepts to needlessly contort to remain un-conflicted.366 The ultimate goal, however, is to develop a therapeutic that has a clear increase in efficacy over the standard of care,367 but if not careful the long path of translation may induce drift away from that goal. The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institutes of Health (1UG3TR003148-01) and the American Heart Association (18TPA34230036 and 442611-NU-80922). Dr. Nguyen receives grant funding from the American Heart Association (18TPA34170049), the National Institutes of Health (R01HL148182), and the Veterans Health Administration (I01-CX001901).
Keywords
- 3D bioprinting
- organ-on-a-chip
- regenerative medicine
- stem cells
- tissue engineering
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Bioengineering
- Biomaterials
- Biochemistry
- Biomedical Engineering
