Will new methods that increase blood flow to bone implants improve viability of engineered bone tissue?

A comprehensive review article describing the most promising strategies for vascularization of bone tissue substitutes is published in Tissue Engineering, Part B: Reviews, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The article is available free online on the Tissue Engineering website.

The lack of an adequate blood supply to engineered bone implants has been a major limiting factor in the ability of these large tissue engineered implants to survive and integrate in the body. Many new strategies for stimulating the growth of new blood vessels and the formation of a vascular network to carry nutrients and oxygen and aid in healing are in development, as presented by Lonnissa H. Nguyen, PhD, and coauthors from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge); Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard University, and Harvard Medical School (MA); Ecole Polytechnique (Palaiseau, France); Chonnam National University (Gwangju, South Korea); Stanford University (CA); Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan). They describe the different methods and their limitations in the article “Vascularized Bone Tissue Engineering: Approaches for Potential Improvement.”

“There is a critical need to develop innovative techniques for tissue vascularization, and the work by Nguyen et al. demonstrates both past successes in the field and future avenues for investigation,” says Reviews Co-Editor-in-Chief John P. Fisher, PhD, Professor and Associate Chair, Fischell Department of Bioengineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.

About the Journal

Tissue Engineering is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online in three parts: Part A–the flagship journal; Part B—Reviews; and Part C—Methods. Led by Co-Editors-In-Chief Antonios Mikos, PhD, Louis Calder Professor at Rice University, Houston, TX, and Peter C. Johnson, MD, Vice President, Research and Development, Avery Dennison Medical Solutions of Chicago, IL and President and CEO, Scintellix, LLC, Raleigh, NC, the Journal brings together scientific and medical experts in the fields of biomedical engineering, material science, molecular and cellular biology, and genetic engineering. Tissue Engineering is the official journal of the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). Complete tables of content and a sample issue may be viewed online on the Tissue Engineering website.

About the Publisher

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Stem Cells and Development, Human Gene Therapy and HGT Methods, and Advances in Wound Care. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 70 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available on the Mary Ann Liebert Inc. website.

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