Biological Engineering: Advances and Methods

The last few decades have seen a tremendous growth in the field of bioengineering. As the need for further treatment and innovation for tissue repair, partial to full organ replication, and gene therapy continues to increase, the field of bioengineering will be tasked with curing and preventing disease and traumatic injuries. The two primary fields currently being focused on in the lab are the way cells interact and communicate to build tissues, and the nature and materials utilized in scaffolding to allow differentiation and migration when cells are seeded. Within those two fields are subsets of different methods, materials that vary greatly. Some stem cells offer certain benefits, yet lack viability due to a host of obstacles, such as ethical questions about their procurement, to their technical obstacles, such as materials utilized for best profusion in a scaffold. It appears that proper and adequate funding for research into finding solutions will be pivotal in having the next medical breakthrough in science. It may very well be referred as one of the greatest advancements in modern history and forever change the face of science should this technology become successful and accessible. Indeed, recent successes in patients would be a strong indicator that this technology and innovation is not too distant in the future. INTRODUCTION Currently, in the US alone, there are over 100,000 candidates awaiting organs on the national organ waiting list. On average, a person on that waiting list dies every 90 minutes (UNOS 2012). In addition, as the amount of recipients is increasing, the amount of donors is decreasing. This is due to factors such as ethical debates and customs regarding organ donation, and the fact that organs may only be harvested coincident with brainstem death, which necessitates hospitals utilize additional resources to keep patients on life support (Briggs et al.1997). While technology and advanced methods have fine-tuned the science of organ transplants, it does not address the need for more organs. In addition, tissues such as cartilage, muscle, and even neural tissue for regeneration in vivo can have a tremendous impact on overall life quality in a patient. In response to this need, the last 30 years have been a whirlwind of activity for researchers to try and replicate and build new tissues and organs, thus creating the field of biological engineering. An early example of tissue engineering was developed by Dr. J. Burke of Massachusetts General Hospital. He created a synthetic neodermal skin utilizing chrondroitin 6-sulface in tandem with collagen, to cover burn patients while their skin was in the process of regenerating. Bioengineering is multifaceted and has many working and intrinsic parts. It requires an in depth and interdisciplinary understanding of the biological cell such as its embryonic origin, cycle, replication, metabolism, energy requirements and proliferation stages, as well as a keen understanding of structural engineering, materials unique in biological adsorption or absorption, chemical compounds and nanotechnology to pair them together in a hybrid organ. At the fundamental level, it begins with the cell, specifically using an embryonic stem cell or mature adult progenitor cell (MAPC) to direct and grow. However, having cells proliferate is not enough, as a clump of differentiated cells is all that would be present, hence the need for scaffolding as well. Scaffolding is tasked with providing a three dimensional structure for the cells to grow on and to deliver growth factors to nurture the cells. Study and research analyzing embryonic and adult stem cells and its methods of use, as well as the requirements scaffolding need to become viable, and assess and evaluate which of the many scaffolding 46