The Birth and Development of Tissue Engineering

The traditional organ transplantation could not meet the need of the clinical treatment for the restrictions such as organ origin,ethic and body immunity. Tissue engineering therefore come to birth and proceed to grow by responding to successive challenges. At the beginning,the definition of tissue engineering was that a combined utilization of cells with scaffold materials and bioactive factors could be an efficient way to promote the research and application of tissue repair and regeneration. With the deep investigation in this field, the tissue engineering concept was also developed. Modern tissue engineering is an interdisciplinary branch of science that study and develop bioactive artificial substitution to maintain,restore or improve the function of the damaged human tissues by use of the principles of engineering science and life science. Since the birth of more than two decades,the development of tissue engineering has experienced about three stages. Regenerative medicine is an important branch science of modern clinical science,which is closely related with stem cell and tissue engineering. Tissue engineering is a perfect tissue organ regeneration,key research field of regenerative medicine,and main development direction of regenerative medicine. The principles and techniques of regenerative medicine promote the development of tissue engineering.