干细胞与组织工程

Stem cells and tissue engineering

随着生物材料、生物反应器设计及对机体发育和创伤修复机制的深入理解,在体外构建用于修复替代人体丧失功能的组织器官这一人类理想,已发展成一门独立且蓬勃发展的学科——组织工程学(Tissue Engineering)。组织工程学是一个多学科交叉的新兴领域,至少涉及生命科学、医学及工程学等三个学科。种子细胞、支架材料和诱导信号是组织工程学的三个基本要素。目前种子细胞是制约组织工程发展的一个主要瓶颈。干细胞生物学的发展使人们看到了打破这个瓶颈的可能。干细胞体外扩增及定向分化的技术发展,及对其增殖和诱导分化机制的深入理解,使工程化组织可以获得理想的基本功能单位,使其应用于临床成为可能。

With the development of biomaterials, bioreactor design and the increased understanding on the mechanism of the development and injuring repair of the human body, the ideal of constructing tissues and organs in vitro to replace the dysfunctional parts in the body has become an independent and flourishing field-- --Tissue Engineering. It＇s an interdisciplinary field that involves life science, medicine and engineering. Cells, scaffolds and signaling factors are three major elements. At present, obtaining appropriate cells is the bottleneck retarding the development of tissue engineering. Stem cell biology provides the possibility of resolving this problem. Increasing understanding of the mechanism on proliferation and differentiation of stem cells has been achieved. More techniques about expanding and direct differentiation of stem cells are being developed. The recent development in stem cell research makes engineering functional tissues closer to the reality.