Tissue engineering aims to develop biological substitutes that restore, maintain, or improve damaged tissue and organ functionality. To date, there are two fundamental tissue engineering approaches for tissue and organ regeneration: stem cell–based regeneration and biomaterial-based regeneration. The challenge of existing stem cell–based techniques is that current therapies lack controlled environments that are crucial to regulate stem cell engraftment and differentiation in vivo, because stem cells are rather sensitive to even minute changes in their environment. Micro/nanotechnology hold great potential to control stem cell differentiation and fate in vivo.
This book presents the latest nano/microtechnologies used to manipulate stem cell behaviors, which is a critical area for regenerative medicine. Moreover, it covers and details cutting-edge research in nano/microfabrication techniques and biomaterials for various tissue/organ, such as bone, cartilage, craniofacial, osteochondral, muscle, bladder and cardiovascular tissue, etc., regenerations.
The contributors of this book are prominent authors that include Dr. Joseph P. Vacanti (Harvard Medical School, pioneer in tissue engineering); Dr. Anthony Atala (Wake Forest, chair of the Department of Urology, top researcher in organ regeneration); Dr. Kyriacos A. Athanasiou (UC Davis, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering and president of Biomedical Engineering Society 2003); Dr. Cato T. Laurencin (University of Connecticut, member of the National Academy of Engineering); Dr. Jennifer West (Duke University, former chair of the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University); and Gilda A. Barabino (Georgia Institute of Technology, President of Biomedical Engineering Society 2011).
About the Editors:
Prof. Lijie Grace Zhang is assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Department of Medicine at the George Washington University (GW), Washington D.C., USA. She is director of the Bioengineering Laboratory for Nanomedicine and Tissue Engineering at GW. She got her PhD in biomedical engineering from Brown University, Rhode Isalnd, and did her postdoctoral study at Rice University, Texas, and Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA.
Prof. Ali Khademhosseini is associate professor at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), and Harvard Medical School (HMS) as well as associate faculty at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Massachusetts, USA. He is also junior principal investigator at Japan’s World Premier International—Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR) at Tohoku University, where he directs a satellite laboratory.
Prof. Thomas J. Webster’s degrees are in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh (B.S., 1995) and in biomedical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (M.S., 1997; Ph.D., 2000). He is currently the chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Northeastern University, Boston, USA. His research explores the use of nanotechnology in numerous applications.
