Assembly Methods
One of the continuing, persistent problems with tissue engineering is mass transport limitations. Engineered tissues generally lack an initial blood supply, thus making it difficult for any implanted cells to obtain sufficient oxygen and nutrients to survive, and/or function properly.
Self-assembly may play an important role here, both from the perspective of encapsulating cells and proteins, as well as creating scaffolds on the right physical scale for engineered tissue constructs and cellular ingrowth.
It might be possible to print organs, or possibly entire organisms. A recent innovative method of construction uses an ink-jet mechanism to print precise layers of cells in a matrix of thermoreversable gel. Endothelial cells, the cells that line blood vessels, have been printed in a set of stacked rings. When incubated, these fused into a tube.
Read more about this topic: Tissue Engineering
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