Regenerative Medicine in the 21st Century: Advances in Engineering, Chemistry, Biology and Medicine Revolutionize Healthcare.

Abstract

As the human population ages, injuries and chronic health conditions will place an enormous financial burden on our healthcare systems. It is therefore imperative to develop affordable, precise, and functional diagnostic tools and reparative systems that will align with current regulatory guidelines and reimbursement policies. To this end, engineering, chemistry, biology, regulatory science, and medicine need to join forces to transform healthcare. Advancements in engineering have made available numerous scaffold fabrication technologies (e.g., electro-spinning, imprinting, biotemplating) that offer control over the scaffold's architectural features down to the nanometer scale. Concomitantly, very elegant tools (e.g., atomic force microscopy; omics suites; bioreactor systems) have been developed that allow investigation of cell–cell and cell–scaffold interactions in vitro and of scaffold–host tissue interfaces in vivo. Significant advances in chemistry also have been made. New polymers have been synthesised that activate reparative molecular cascades and regulate transcriptional factors and signalling pathways that modulate host-cell phenotype and improve vascularisation and wound healing. Further, sophisticated chemical systems have offered control over degradation properties, mechanical resilience, and localised and sustained delivery of therapeutics and biologics. Stimuli-responsive chemical moieties have also allowed the development of more responsive biomaterials that unambiguously interact with the host, promoting functional repair and regeneration. Tremendous strides in biotechnology and biology have enabled the development of analytical tools and purification methods that have improved purification processes of biomolecules. Improvements in recombinant technologies have enabled the development of more potent bioactive molecules at higher yields. Advances in cell culture technologies have allowed control of, albeit not complete as yet, permanently differentiated cell phenotypes and stem cell lineage commitments during ex vivo expansion, resulting in the development of more functional cell-based therapies, tissues, and organs in the laboratory. Maybe the highlight of the first few years of this century is in the field of stem cell research, where genetic engineering and reprogramming have empowered regenerative therapies with the discovery of induced pluripotent stem cells. Alone or in combination these discoveries have enabled strategies for the development of more functional reparative therapies that address unmet clinical needs in the cardiovascular, neural, musculoskeletal, and soft tissue spaces. Refinement of these technologies in the years to come is anticipated to revolutionise healthcare. We cannot wait! This special issue contains fifteen contributions covering various fields in which biomaterials are making an impact. Indicative examples include: functional self-assembled biomimetic and bio-responsive building blocks with the ability to form supramolecular structures that closely imitate the properties of native tissues; advances in recombinant technologies for biomedical applications; synthetic biomaterials for improved vessel formation and wound healing; hydrogel systems with tunable properties; bioinspired materials and scaffold engineering technologies for advanced biomaterials fabrication; modular bioengineering strategies for scaffold-free tissue equivalent development; advances in glycobiology for cell screening; advanced tools for cell–cell and cell–matrix interaction investigation. We are most grateful to our colleagues for their contributed reports on this exciting special issue in advanced tools and technologies for the modern biomedicine. Dimitrios I. Zeugolis is the director of the Regenerative, Modular and Developmental Engineering Laboratory (REMODEL) at NUI Galway and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM) at NUI Galway. He is council member elect of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society, EU Chapter, and co-founder of Matrix Biology Ireland society. Abhay Pandit is the Director of the Centre for Research in Medical Devices (CÚRAM) at NUI Galway. He has been elected as a Council Member of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine (2010–2013) and as a Council Member of the International Society and European Society for Biomaterials (2013–2017). Prof. Pandit was inducted as an International Fellow in Biomaterials Science and Engineering by the International Union of Societies for Biomaterials Science and Engineering in 2012 and Fellow of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society in 2016.