Progress in tissue engineering of soft tissue and organs

摘要

The terms Tissue Engineering and more recently Regenerative Medicine are confusing and all encompassing, and to the lay observer, they conjure the mysterious world of stem cells where wounds heal magically, the lame walk, the dumb speak, and the grail of eternal youth is within our grasp. Whereas Regenerative Medicine involves typically the systemic delivery of stem cells in the hope of reversing degenerative disease or stimulating repair post injury, the earlier term, Tissue Engineering, had more limited expectations, though they were still grandiose. Tissue Engineering promised the growth of three-dimensional tissues and organs fuelled by the potentially limitless resources offered by the stem cell and especially the stem cells from embryonic tissue. Time, ethical debate, and commercial reality have tempered many of these hopes and limited their current focus to more realistic, achievable longer-term goals