About this Research Topic
Regenerative medicine is a growing area of the medical sciences that has the unique peculiarity of involving both biological pathways and clinical applications. Currently, new biomaterials have been developing in order to successfully treat damaged or lost tissues, promote tissue formation, and restore organ function. Future regenerative strategies will be aimed at developing innovative biologically-friendly and smart biomaterials, also at triggering stem cells towards specific lineages in clinical-grade conditions, as well as through the use of MSC-derived conditioned medium, exosomes or small molecules.
The next approaches should overcome the current biological and clinical limitations and be able to use those autologous factors that can naively induce and promote the biological conditions that could guide and improve any kind of tissue regeneration. The biomedical applications of innovative coatings or functionalized surfaces have recently boosted the theranostic use of novel biomaterials. To date, there is increasing clinical need for vascular substitutes due to accidents, malformations, and ischemic diseases.
Over the years, many approaches have been developed to solve this problem, starting from autologous native vessels to artificial vascular grafts; unfortunately, none of these have provided the perfect vascular substitute. All have been burdened by various complications, including infection, thrombogenicity, calcification, foreign body reaction, lack of growth potential, late stenosis and occlusion from intimal hyperplasia, and pseudoaneurysm formation. In the last few years, vascular tissue engineering has emerged as one of the most promising approaches for producing mechanically competent vascular substitutes. Nanotechnologies have contributed their part, allowing extraordinarily biostable and biocompatible materials to be developed.
This Special Issue is dedicated to and will highlight the most promising applications of tissue engineering to great and small diameter vessel regeneration.
The next approaches should overcome the current biological and clinical limitations and be able to use those autologous factors that can naively induce and promote the biological conditions that could guide and improve any kind of tissue regeneration. The biomedical applications of innovative coatings or functionalized surfaces have recently boosted the theranostic use of novel biomaterials. To date, there is increasing clinical need for vascular substitutes due to accidents, malformations, and ischemic diseases.
Over the years, many approaches have been developed to solve this problem, starting from autologous native vessels to artificial vascular grafts; unfortunately, none of these have provided the perfect vascular substitute. All have been burdened by various complications, including infection, thrombogenicity, calcification, foreign body reaction, lack of growth potential, late stenosis and occlusion from intimal hyperplasia, and pseudoaneurysm formation. In the last few years, vascular tissue engineering has emerged as one of the most promising approaches for producing mechanically competent vascular substitutes. Nanotechnologies have contributed their part, allowing extraordinarily biostable and biocompatible materials to be developed.
This Special Issue is dedicated to and will highlight the most promising applications of tissue engineering to great and small diameter vessel regeneration.
Keywords: Regenerative Medicine, Biomaterials, Vascular Surgery, Tissue Engineering, Function Restoration, New Approaches
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