Abstract
The objective of regenerative medicine is to assist the regeneration and repairing of body tissue defect in the size as large as impossible to self-repairing or to substitute the biological functions of damaged organs by making use of cells of high potential. However, it is often tough to realize the regeneration of tissue only by giving the cells to a body defect. For successful tissue regeneration, it is key to artificially create a site suitable for regeneration induction at the defect. This can be achieved by combinationally taking advantage of an artificial scaffold with 3-demensional structures for cell proliferation and differentiation as well as growth factors. Tissue engineering is a biomedical form to technologically assist the site creation with biomaterials. Growth factor is often required to promote tissue regeneration while it can also induce angiogenesis which is effective in supplying oxygen and nutrients to survive the cells transplanted for organ substitution. However, one cannot always expect the biological effects of growth factor because of its poor in vivo stability, unless its drug delivery system (DDS) is contrived. This paper describes recent research results of tissue engineering based on the DDS technology to discuss possibility of the clinical applications, briefly overviewing the significant role of biomaterials in tissue engineering.
