Tissue engineering has emerged as a field that attempts to harness the bodiesu27 own developmental and repair features to treat diseases and illnesses. Many of these illnesses are caused by necrosis or loss of functionality of complete organs or specific cell types. Early discoveries in embryonic stem cells fueled a wave of research that led to claims about possibly regenerating nonfunctioning organs. Although we are still far away from being able to grow functional organs in a Petri dish, the field continues to progress forward, and new clinical trials have been approved for using both embryonic and adult stem cell based solutions for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Current trends have moved towards adult stem cells for cell based therapies as they offer an autologous source and are less tumorigenic than their embryonic and induced-pluripotent stem cell counter parts. This review will begin with an outline of stem cell classes and then focus on current therapies in myocardial tissue repair, neural tissue repair, diabetes, as well as osteogenic and chondrogenic differentiation are also reviewed.
展开▼
