[Significance of tissue engineering in clinical practice of regenerative medicine]

It is undoubtedly important for regenerative medicine to discover and use the cells of high proliferation and differentiation potentials. However, there are numerous cases where the tissue regeneration cannot be always achieved only by using the cells. Thus, an environmental site suitable for enabling cells to induce tissue regeneration is highly required for successful tissue regeneration. Tissue engineering is the biomedical technology or methodology indispensable to create this regeneration site while it makes use of the scaffold for cell proliferation and differentiation, the drug delivery system of biological signals, and their combination with cells. This paper describes the present status and research data of tissue engineering to emphasize the considerable significance in regenerative medicine.