Scope

Repair of critical-size or difficult to heal tissue defects caused by disease, malformation, trauma, or tumor resection remains a major task to achieve successfully. Starting at the end of last century, major progress has been made with regard to the transplant of “ex vivo” expanded autologous (from the patient) stem/progenitor cells, in most cases seeded on or associated to carrier biomaterials. The rapidly increasing knowledge about the physiological response of the body to injury and the signaling pathways activated during the healing process suggest that the human organism itself could provide the crucial elements needed for tissue repair and regeneration. Therefore, it appears that, parallel to the “classical” tissue engineering approach to be considered mainly in extreme and critical situations, new therapeutic strategies, aimed at the stimulation of the intrinsic endogenous potential of tissues to heal or regenerate, should be developed to make possible that a large number of patients could benefit from them.

The specialty section of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine pursues a multidisciplinary approach to the development and application of new therapeutic strategies and products for the treatment of different tissue defects and lesions. Articles submitted to the section should focus on a variety of topics such as design and production of biomimetic and intelligent scaffolds from natural and synthetic molecules, interactions between cells and biomaterials, growth factors, drug delivery, and stem cell biology. Contributions are also expected on the characterization of the interactions between cells and molecules that compose the in vivo regenerative microenvironment and the mechanisms of activation and mobilization of locally-resident and/or circulating stem/progenitor cells after the tissue injury and during the healing process. Submission of contributions dealing with pre-clinical animal trials and clinical applications, including tissue engineering and regenerative medicine approaches in all clinical disciplines are highly encouraged.

Submission

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