Maria Teresa Conconi, Univesity of Padua, Italy
- Succeeded in transplanting a windpipe made of a combination of donated tissue and the patient's cells. This precedure utilized the technique of making an existing windpipe a scaffold by stripping its cells with detergent and enzymes.
2008
2006
Anthony Atala, Wake Forest University
-Successfully was able to fit seven spina bifida sufferers with bladders grown from samples of their muscle cells and bladder wall cells were grown on a scaffold prior to implantation.
Tissue Engineering: A Timeline of Developments
Organogenesis
- The living, cell-based product Apligraf becomes the first product of its type to receive unconditional FDA approval
- Used for the treatment of venous leg ulcers and diabetic foot ulcers
1981
1998
2015
Rene Anand, Ohio State University
- Most complete human brain model to date, expressing 99% of the genes in a human fetal brain.
- These brains are not for implantation like the other organs; these will instead streamline clinical trials in humans.
Drs. Burke and Yannas
- This collaboration between a surgeon and a professor's resulted in the first commercially reproducible, synthetic human skin.
- It has since saved the lives of innumerable severe burn patients around the world.
Larry Hench, Florida Institute of Technology
- In response to the huge amount of Vietnam War amputees, he discovered that the mineral hydroxylapatite could form a bioactive glass onto which bone cells seeded themselves and created new healthy bone.
1970
W. T. Green
- This man was an orthopedic surgeon who tried to grow cartilage and implant it into mice.
- He was unsuccessful, and from there was able to theorize that if there were biocompatible materials, they could be used to form a scaffold for cells.
1969
Dr. Charles Vacanti, Dr. Joseph Vacanti, Dr. Joseph Upton
-A young patient with Poland's Syndrome becomes the first human implanted with a scaffold seeded with his own chondrocytes, in the hopes to replace his sternum.
mid
1980
Dr. Joseph Vacanti and Dr. Robert Langer
- This collaboration strove to design scaffolds for cell delivery, as opposed to using naturally occurring, unpredictable scaffolds.
- Their article published in Science is the most cited manuscript of the discipline.
1991
1969
2014
2013
Professor Geoffrey Raisman, University College London
- Discovered the technique of using cells from a paralyzed patient's nose to grow and implant a 'nerve bridge' to restore movement and sensation. The patient was the first to recover from spinal nerve severing.
Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences
- Used embryonic stem cells and adult stem cells to tissue engineer a 4mm brain matching the development of a nine-week fetus.