ORIGINS OF TISSUE ENGINEERING

Abstract

Tissue engineering conceptually partners engineering with the life sciences to provide living substitutes for medical and biologic applications. As we begin tracking the origins of tissue engineering, what stands out from the past and remains with us in the present, is the role played by surgeons in creating one body part for another to meet the needs of individual patients. Improvising anatomic repair using an individul’s own organ or tissue is still a technique often used by the reconstructive surgeon. For example consider the dental surgeon’s common practice of using a segment of a rib to reconstruct part of the jaw which have been resected due to cancer. The autotransplanted rib will support the function of mastication, deglution, speech as well as growth and development of the young jaw. The procedure has been remarkably successful, but in the new age of tissue engineering our thinking is directed to the fabrication of a substitute jaw constituting bone and cartilage that the surgeon can take off the shelf.