Innovations in cardiac regenerative medicine: The role of tissue engineering

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a leading cause of death worldwide. CVD includes conditions such as myocardial infarction (MI), arrhythmias, valvular heart disease, and cardiomyopathy. The limitations of heart treatment are related to the inability of damaged cells to regenerate, which leads to an increasing demand for new therapies. Cardiac tissue engineering (CTE) aims to efficiently regenerate damaged cardiac tissues by combining cells and biomaterials to address these diseases. Various cell types have been used in CTE research, including adult and pluripotent stem cells, the latter differentiating into functional cardiomyocytes. An ideal biomaterial promotes efficient adhesion, growth, and differentiation of cardiac cells and possesses the appropriate characteristics needed for functional cardiac cells, showing great potential for heart repair and regeneration. This review focuses on various tissue engineering approaches for the regeneration and repair of cardiac tissues following myocardial infarction.