Neovascularization in tissue engineering.
A prerequisite for successful tissue engineering is adequate vascularization that would allow tissue engineering constructs to survive and grow. Angiogenic growth factors, alone and in combination, have been used to achieve this, and gene therapy has been used as a tool to enable sustained release of these angiogenic proteins. Cell-based therapy using endothelial cells and their precursors presents an alternative approach to tackling this challenge. These studies have occurred on a background of advancements in scaffold design and assays for assessing neovascularization. Finally, several studies have already attempted to translate research in neovascularization to clinical use in the blossoming field of therapeutic angiogenesis.
Division of Cardiac Surgery, McGill University Health Center, McGill University, 687 Pine Avenue West, Suite S8.73b, Montreal H3A-1A1, Quebec, Canada. jennifer.chung2@mail.mcgill.ca.
Jennifer C-Y
JC
Chung
Division of Cardiac Surgery, McGill University Health Center, McGill University, 687 Pine Avenue West, Suite S8.73b, Montreal H3A-1A1, Quebec, Canada. dshumtim@yahoo.ca.
Dominique
D
Shum-Tim