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Tissue Engineering -As discussed in the last chapter and earlier in this chapter, a variety of animal tissues can now be cultured. The number of types of these human tissues is more than 200. During the last decade, the tissue culture work in animals demonstrated that virtually any human tissue or organ can be grown in culture

This has become possible when it was found that the ability of cultured cells to undergo differentiation can be restored. These developments led to the emergence of a new science called 'tissue engineering'.

Skin was the first organ, which could be cultured in artificial media and could be used successfully for transplantation, after serious skin burns. Eugene Bell, who is the pioneer of artificial skin development, feels that eventually a tissue engineer will be able to reconstitute body parts for,

i) use in grafting, and to be used as

(ii) better models for drug delivery and action.

It is believed by tissue engineers like Robert (Bob) Nerem of USA, that lifter the success of artificial skin, the next step is the growth of functional artificial organs like pancreas and liver damaged due to a disease. Although the clinical application of these other artificial organs is remote, the potential of growing and using these artificial organs does exist.

A 'tissue engineering conference' was held in 1990 at Keystone, Colorado (USA), where possibility of replacing 'cartilage' in stress bearing joints was found to be a reality. Donald Ingber of USA works on developing extra cellular matrices (ECMs) that will allow tissue growth and differentiation in vitro, as a means to organ replacement.

However, tissue engineering would need a knowledge of physics and chemistry along with the knowledge about cell and tissue culture.

For example, one will have to know, how the cellular environment affects three dimensional structure of tissue grown in culture. One will also have to know the fine structure of carbohydrate aggregates surrounding the cells.

Detailed knowledge on these aspects will allow the induction of stem cells to differentiate in required manner. It is also believed that stem cells exist for all tissue types, and if these can be recovered, any human tissue can be induced to reform.

 
   
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