title: Biomechanics and mechanobiology in functional tissue engineering.
abstract: The field of tissue engineering continues to expand and mature, and several products are now in clinical use, with numerous other preclinical and clinical studies underway. However, specific challenges still remain in the repair or regeneration of tissues that serve a predominantly biomechanical function. Furthermore, it is now clear that mechanobiological interactions between cells and scaffolds can critically influence cell behavior, even in tissues and organs that do not serve an overt biomechanical role. Over the past decade, the field of "functional tissue engineering" has grown as a subfield of tissue engineering to address the challenges and questions on the role of biomechanics and mechanobiology in tissue engineering. Originally posed as a set of principles and guidelines for engineering of load-bearing tissues, functional tissue engineering has grown to encompass several related areas that have proven to have important implications for tissue repair and regeneration. These topics include measurement and modeling of the in vivo biomechanical environment; quantitative analysis of the mechanical properties of native tissues, scaffolds, and repair tissues; development of rationale criteria for the design and assessment of engineered tissues; investigation of the effects biomechanical factors on native and repair tissues, in vivo and in vitro; and development and application of computational models of tissue growth and remodeling. Here we further expand this paradigm and provide examples of the numerous advances in the field over the past decade. Consideration of these principles in the design process will hopefully improve the safety, efficacy, and overall success of engineered tissue replacements.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Biomedical Engineering, Duke University Medical Center, 375 MSRB, Box 3093, Durham, NC 27710, USA. Electronic address: guilak@duke.edu.
authors.forename: Farshid
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Guilak
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical, Chemical and Environmental Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Butler
authors.affiliation: Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
authors.forename: Steven A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Goldstein
authors.affiliation: Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Frank P T
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Baaijens
mesh_terms: D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D001703:Biophysics; D012038:Regeneration; D023822:Tissue Engineering
keywords: Biomaterials; Cellular engineering; Gene therapy; Regenerative medicine