Biotechnosium...

Tissue engineering is the use of a combination of cells within an artificially-created support system (e.g. an artificial pancreas or a bioartificial liver. The term treatments">regenerative medicine is often used synonymously with tissue engineering, although those involved in regenerative medicine place more emphasis on the use of stem cells to produce tissues.

In 2003, the NSF published a report entitled "The Emergence of Tissue Engineering as a Research Field" [1], which gives a thorough description of the history of this field.

Micromass cultures of C3H-10T1/2 cells at varied oxygen tensions stained with A commonly applied definition of tissue engineering, as stated by Langer and Vacanti, is "an interdisciplinaryfield that applies the principles of engineering and life sciences toward the development of biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve function or a whole organ". ^{Tissue engineering has also been defined as "understanding the principles of tissue growth, and applying this to produce functional replacement tissue for clinical use."citation needed]}

^{Powerful developments in the multidisciplinary field of tissue engineering have yielded a novel set of tissue replacement parts and implementation strategies. Scientific advances in biomaterials, stem cells, growth and differentiation factors, and biomimetic environments have created unique opportunities to fabricate tissues in the laboratory from combinations of engineered extracellular matrices ("scaffolds"), cells, and biologically active molecules. Among the major challenges now facing tissue engineering is the need for more complex functionality, as well as both functional and biomechanical stability in laboratory-grown tissues destined for transplantation. The continued success of tissue engineering, and the eventual development of true human replacement parts, will grow from the convergence of engineering and basic research advances in tissue, matrix, growth factor, stem cell, and developmental biology, as well as materials science and bioinformatics.}