Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering is a developing multidisciplinary area, in which it depends on certain principles of biology and to the development of parts that can be substituted. These substitutes should be able to restore, improve and maintain the function of human tissues. Thus in other words you can define Tissue Engineering as the very prominent and biomedical journal which is advancing in its field with cutting-edge research. It also finds its importance in the applications on every type of tissue growth and regeneration. This interdisciplinary journal makes the principles of engineering and various life sciences in the field of tissue development and regenerative medicine together into action. A very important point that should be noted regarding the Tissue Engineering is that it provides a common central forum for very important scientific research and in the field of clinical applications developments.

The Tissue engineering which involves the fields of biology, medicine, and engineering will change the method by which we improve the health and life quality of all the people around the world. This can be done by maintaining, restoring, or even enhancing tissue and organ function. Tissue engineering has a therapeutic application. This means that the tissue is grown in a patient or outside them and later is transplanted. This also have diagnostic applications in which the tissue is made in vitro. Then they are used for testing various aspects like drug metabolism and its intake, the toxicity of these drugs and pathogenicity. Tissue Engineering can also referred to be in the vitro development. This is because, it grows the tissues or organs which replaces or supports all the functions of defective or injured body parts.

Tissue engineering consists of three elements. They are different types of cells used, The scaffold which are the tissue model construct and finally the signals which can be the molecular signaling molecules called as growth factors.  You can thus conclude that the ultimate goal of tissue engineering is to develop the organs or tissues that can be replaced and the use of autologous cells. Researches of the Tissue engineering are currently done on various types of tissues and organs. These organs and tissue parts include:

• Skin   
• Cartilage
• Blood Vessels
• Bone 
• Muscle    
• Nerves
• Liver
• Kidney

The cells used in the tissue engineering applications are classified in to various types. They are discussed as below:

·         Primary cells
These are the various differentiated cells which are taken from the patient which are also known as tissue biopsy. They can yield only low cellular. However they would potentially create age-related problems.

·         Passaged cells

In tissue engineering, passaged cells are serial expansion of primary cells. They increase by 100-1000X. However, these cells have a tendency to de-differentiate with too many passages and also lose potency.

·         Stem cells

The stem cells of tissue engineering are the undifferentiated cells with self-renewal capability. These cells can also be differentiated into functional cell types.

Applications of Tissue engineering

Tissue engineering researches its application in various fields. These include the following areas:

1.      Biomaterials

The application of Tissue engineering in the field of Biomaterial includes series of biomaterials which are mainly designed in directing the cell organization, cell growth, and differentiation of cells. This comes under the process of forming functional tissue by providing both physical and chemical cues.

2.      Cells

In this field of application, it includes enabling various methodologies for the differentiation of cells. They thus acquires the correct source of cells those like stem cells,  genetically engineered cells, autologous cells, xenogeneic cells, allogeneic cells and immunological manipulation.

3.      Biomolecules

Biomolecules of Tissue engineering application includes various factors like the growth factors, angiogenic factors, differentiation factors and bone morphogenic proteins.

4.      Engineering Design Aspects

Tissue engineering has also made its way in the engineering designs aspects. They include fields like bioreactors, cell and tissue storage and shipping, 2-dimensional cell expansion, 3-dimensional tissue growth and vascularization.

5.      Biomechanical Aspects of Design

Biomechanical application includes various properties of native tissues, engineered tissues, and mechanical signals regulating them and its efficacy and safety.

6.      Informatics to support tissue engineering

Informatics application of Tissue engineering includes sequencing of gene and protein, analyzing gene expression and protein expression and its interaction analysis, analyzing quantitative cellular image and quantitative tissue. These are also used in silico tissue and cell modeling, using the digital tissue manufacturing, automated quality assurance systems, data mining tools, and clinical informatics interfaces.