Organ Tissue Engineering

The notion of being able to engineer complete organs has inspired an entire generation of researchers. While recent years have brought significant progress in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering, the immense challenges encountered when trying to engineer an entire organ have to be acknowledged. Despite a good understanding of cell phenotypes, cellular niches and cell-to-biomaterial interactions, the formation of tissues composed of multiple cells remains highly challenging. Only a step-by-step approach will allow the future production of a living tissue construct ready for implantation and to augment organ function.

In this book, expert authors present the current state of this approach. It offers a concise overview and serves as a great starting point for anyone interested in the application of tissue engineering or regenerative medicine for organ engineering. Each chapter contains a short overview including physiological and pathological changes as well as the current clinical need. The potential cell sources and suitable biomaterials for each organ type are discussed and possibilities to produce organ-like structures are illustrated. The ultimate goal is for the generated small tissues to unfold their full potential in vivo and to serve as a native tissue equivalent. By integrating and evolving, these implants will form functional tissue in-vivo. This book discusses the desired outcome by focusing on well-defined functional readouts. Each chapter addresses the status of clinical translations and closes with the discussion of current bottlenecks and an outlook for the coming years.

Daniel Eberli is a scientific physician working in the translational field of urologic tissue engineering. He has a medical degree from the Medical School in Zurich, Switzerland, and a Ph.D. in Molecular Medicine from Wake Forest University, Winston Salem, NC. He has a faculty position at the Department of Urology at the University Hospital Zurich, where he devotes half of his time to patient care. Together with his research team, he is working on novel biomaterials for bladder reconstruction, improving autonomic innervation, cellular treatment of incontinence and tracking of stem cells.

Sang Jin Lee is currently Associate Professor at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Wake Forest School of Medicine. Dr. Lee received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea in 2003 and took a postdoctoral fellowship in the Laboratories for Tissue Engineering and Cellular Therapeutics at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston and the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine where he is currently a faculty member. He is also cross-appointed to the Virginia Tech-WFU Biomedical Engineering and Science. Dr. Lee has authored more than 120 scientific publications and reviews, has edited 1 textbook, and has written 30 chapters in several books. Dr. Lee’s current research works focus on designing and fabricating clinically applicable tissue or organ constructs using 3D bioprinting strategies.

Andreas Traweger is currently  Research Professor for Regenerative Biology at the Paracelsus Medical University in Salzburg, Austria. He received his PhD in Genetics from the University of Salzburg and completed his post-doctoral training at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute in Toronto, Canada. He was then R&D Manager at Baxter for 4 years before joining Paracelsus Medical University. His research interests lie in tendon biology in general and to devise novel strategies in tendon and bone regeneration. Since 2018 he is CSO of Celericon Therapeutics GmbH, a biotech startup focusing on the use of MSC-derived extracellular vesicles to improve tissue regeneration.