Synthetic Biology and Tissue Engineering

Abstract

Advanced approaches that can mimic the structure and function of natural tissue in tissue engineering applications that use multidisciplinary engineering approaches to repair damaged or dysfunctional tissues are fed forward by current engineering applications. Manipulating cells or cell groups in an integrated manner into the scaffold, similar to the native tissue composition, is the main challenge in these approaches. Synthetic biology approaches, originating from genetic engineering, based on the use of advanced tools in the manipulation of cells at the molecular level, are one of the most current issues in tissue engineering that shed light on the programming of cells. Synthetic biology tools allow the reprogramming of cells whose transcriptional, translational, or post-translational molecular mechanisms have been engineered by stimulating them with intrinsic or extrinsic signals. Combining these advanced and excellent tools from synthetic biology with materials engineering applications of tissue engineering is the latest fashion. This chapter discusses going beyond conventional tissue engineering applications, synthetic biological molecular tools, circuit designs that allow the complex behavior of cells to be manipulated with these tools, and approaches that enable the integration of these tools into the material component of tissue engineering