Development of Hydrogels and Biomimetic regulators as tissue engineering scaffolds

Abstract

This paper reviews major research and development issues relating to hydrogels as scaffolds for tissue engineering, the article starts with a brief introduction of tissue engineering and hydrogels as extracellular matrix mimics, followed by a description of the various types of hydrogels and preparation methods, before a discussion of the physical and chemical properties that are important to their application. There follows a short comment on the trends of future research and development. Throughout the discussion there is an emphasis on the genetic understanding of bone tissue engineering application. © 2012 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.