Tissue Engineering: New Paradigm of Biomedicine

Abstract

Tissue engineering is a multidisciplinary field of biomedicine that is being used to develop a new tissue or restore the function of diseased tissue/organ. The main objective of tissue engineering is to overcome the shortage of donor organs. Tissue engineering is mainly based on three components i.e. cells, scaffold and growth factors. Among these three components, scaffold is a primary influencing factor that provides the structural support to the cells and helps to deliver the growth factors which stimulate the proliferation and differentiation of cells to regenerate a new tissue. The properties of a scaffold mainly depend upon types of biomaterial and fabrication techniques that are used to fabricate the scaffold. Biofabrication facilitates the construction of three-dimensional complex of living (cells) and non-living (signaling molecules and extracellular matrices polymers etc.) components. Biofabrication has potential application especially in skin and bone tissue regeneration due to its accuracy, reproducibility and customization of scaffolds as well as cell and signaling molecule delivery. In this review article, different types of biomaterials and fabrication techniques have been discussed to fabricate of a nanofibrous scaffold along with different types of cells and growth factor which are used for tissue engineering applications to regenerate a new tissue. Among different techniques to fabricate a scaffold, electrospinning is simple and cost effective technique that has been mainly focused in the review to produce nanofibous scaffold. On the other hand, a tissue might be repair itself and restore to its normal function inside the body by applying the principle of regenerative medicine.