Tissue engineering techniques in cardiac repair and disease modelling

Cell therapy has been proposed to treat patients with end-stage heart failure. However, it has been suggested that the significant mechanical forces in an often ischaemic, inflamed, biochemically hostile environment may cause poor cell survival and retention. It is hypothesised that tissue engineering techniques could be used to modify the environment to improve the efficacy of cell therapy. Similarly, it has been suggested that tissue engineering technology could be used to mature the phenotype of immature cardiomyocytes in vitro, making them more useful disease models. In this review we will briefly discuss key tissue engineering techniques and principles that can be used to facilitate cell therapy, and modify the phenotype of immature cardiomyocytes and stem cells.