For all of the things that Tissue Engineering has accomplished, in many ways it is still a field in its infancy. There is a much-cited "double hurdle" that the field will have to overcome: TE solutions must be therapeuticaly effective, curing whatever maladies are presented to it, and at the same time it must be commercially viable, able to be marketed to enough people at a price low enough to keep profiting. The problem with some tissue engineering companies is that they are so specific, with a small amount of people to sell to and facing many competitors - three separate companies that treat foot ulcers in diabetics come quickly to mind.
Yet another challenge that Tissue Engineering needs to constantly address is to make sure that the hype from the public will not exceed the actual output. This is what occurred in the 1990s, as the idea spread that TE organs were instantly ready to be the replacement for organ transplantations; when they were not ready, there were widespread unmet expectations from the public, leading to a decrease in public support and funding for TE research. Tempering expectations as new breakthoughs are released to the public will help this field continue to grow.
March 2016:
Breakthroughs in the last month alone
Tissue Engineered Blood Vessels
Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory have developed a way to create microvasculature (the smallest blood vessels) using techniques used for creating continuous micron-wide polymer fibers. Instead of making the highly complex, major blood vessels, this technique allows them to leave out some layers, depending on the size and complexity of the blood vessel needed. This major breakthrough in the field of tissue engineering could be the solution to supporting new TE tissues and organs as they grow.
2016: The Breakthroughs are Not Slowing
In this world where we imagine that things will never change, that the same fatal illnesses will take us as they did our loved ones, where 'impossible' is a word given absolute power and finality, science provides a sudden shock. Progress. In the face of the violence of today's world, one can find a comfort in science: Look how humans are making the impossible possible. With science, there comes hope.
One of the most gratifying aspects of a research project is getting to read papers published in the 1980s, in the early 2000s, frustrated at failure, dejected in the face of receding funds and flailing companies and the broadly generalized, theoretical, fanciful ideas - the then-far-off fantasy of growing organs in a lab - and then looking at the news headlines of the modern day and seeing just how far we have come.
Patients of Dr. Ioannis Yannas are shown playing happily in the hospital. Many of these children would not be alive today without his skin tissue engineering solutions.
Organs on a Chip - Latest Leap Forward
Biomedical engineers at the University of Toronto have been able to get tiny heart and liver tissues to function just as if they were inside a living being. Their heart beats on its own, and their liver is able to produce urea and even metabolize drugs. Not only are these tiny organs fully functional, but they are also sustained with artificial blood vessels, created with a clear, flexible polymer - because of this, eventually these mini-organs could be joined with other tissues or even implanted into animals. This technology has the potential to bring speed and precision to the long and difficult process of drug development and testing.
Lab Grown Hearts
Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital are growing hearts in a lab and have just published their progress in the journal Circulation Research. Using "unsuitable" hearts from a donor bank, the team used the common technique of stripping an organ of its cells with a detergent. It was then repopulated using a newer technique: stem cells that were reverted from skin cells using messenger RNA. After 14 days in a bioreactor, contracing immature muscle tissue was already present. This technology will help with the tremendous organ donor issue, and eliminate the issue of compatibility, since hearts will be repopulated using the patient's own cells.