Introduction to Tissue Engineering

Tissue engineering is a recent field that aims at developing or regenerating artificial tissues and organs. The idea of replacing a damaged body part using materials from natural origin was proposed and even applied over 4000 years ago. However, it was not till very recently that living tissues were engineered, giving rise to the field of tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is an emerging field that holds strong promises to provide replacements for damaged tissues by combining three main elements, namely cells, scaffolds, and biomechanical or biochemical signals. Current research in the field focuses on the development of these three elements to answer basic questions and produce functional living tissues. Tissue engineering has already showed remarkable successes in producing avascular tissues and organs (e.g., skin, cartilage, bladder, etc.) and holds great promises for producing more complex tissues and organs containing highly organized three-dimensional vascular structures. In the future, tissue engineering is expected to result in more complex tissues and organs that will be useful in overcoming the need for organ donations, reducing the number of animals used in drug discovery and drug toxicity research, and facilitating the development of patient-specific smart diagnostics and personalized medicine. Alongside applied tissue engineering, the needs for complete understanding of the basic sciences governing cells, their microenvironment, and signals that control their behavior are crucial. This chapter provides a brief introduction to tissue engineering. The history of tissue engineering, the recent advancements in the field, and the future of tissue engineering are briefly discussed.