Thoughts on Scaffolds

Scaffolds are instrumental in the engineering of functional tissues, and therefore have been an intense area of interest within regenerative biology and medicine in areas of research and development. Many approaches exist for creating scaffolds with either natural or synthetic advanced materials, which are subsequently coupled with cells and other materials and microintegrated with the aid of a bioreactor, finally forming a functional three-dimensional tissue. Although many advances have been made over the years, none of these have truly been successful, as postulated by literature for either biomedical or clinical utility. For example, generated reconstructs have many limitations, such as poor cell infiltration throughout the entire depth of the scaffold, the associated cost, and the time for generating functional reconstructs mimicking native tissue. These and other roadblocks have truly limited the use of scaffolds as tissue engineering biomaterials/building blocks in regenerative medicine. However, these obstacles have recently been overcome with new scaffolding technologies unearthed and pioneered in 2005, which demonstrate the ability to directly handle large quantities of multiple cell types with both a biopolymer and other advanced materials for simultaneously forming a three-dimensional living reconstruct mimicking native tissues. These recently discovered platform biotechnologies will have significant ramifications for the engineering of a three-dimensional tissue and for regenerative medicine in general, as these platforms are versatile.