Functional Requirements for the Engineering of a Blood Vessel Substitute

Abstract

The goal of tissue engineering is to repair or replace tissues and organs by delivering implanted cells, scaffolds, DNA, proteins, and/or protein fragments at surgery. Tissue engineering merges aspects of engineering and biology, and many rapid achievements in this field have arisen in part from significant advances in cell and molecular biology. Functional Tissue Engineering addresses the key issues in repairing and replacing load-bearing structures effectively. What are the thresholds of force, stress, and strain that normal tissues transmit or encounter? What are the mechanical properties of these tissues when subjected to expected in vivo stresses and strains, as well as under failure conditions? Do tissue engineered repairs and replacements need to exactly duplicate the structure and function of the normal tissue or organ? When developing these implants in culture, how do physical factors such as mechanical stress regulate cell behavior in bioreactors as compared to signals experienced in vivo? And finally, can tissue engineers mechanically stimulate these implants before surgery to produce a better repair outcome? Chapters written by well-known researchers discuss these matters and provide guidelines and a summary of the current state of technology. Functional Tissue Engineering will be useful to students and researchers as it will remind tissue engineers of the clinical importance of restoring function to damaged tissue and structures. Further, the book clarifies the identification of critical structural and mechanical requirements needed for each construct. Functional Tissue Engineering also provides an invaluable resource to help tissue engineers incorporate these functional criteria into the design, manufacture, and optimization of tissue engineered products. Finally it serves as a reference and teaching text for the rapidly increasing population of students and investigators in the field of tissue engineering.