TISSUE ENGINEERING
from petri dish to patient
MODELING HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY
MODELING BIOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
Tissue engineering (TE) allows scientists to grow organs and other types of tissues in vitro for transplantation and other remedial applications. But there is much more to TE than just growing organs for transplantation. Because an extracellular matrix develops while the cells proliferate, TE constructs closely mimic in vivo conditions. With this, scientists can create models of certain parts of the human body to understand the cellular microenvironment of certain tissues. Scientists can use these models to further comprehend chemical, physical, and mechanical interactions between and of cells.
CANCER
Cancer is one of the most widespread diseases in the world. With over 100 differnt types, cancer will cause more than 575,000 deaths and over 1,650,000 are diagnosed will be with it just in the year 2016. Cancer is a result of abnormal cell growth; more specifically, the repeated process of unwarranted and unnecessary cell growth and division.
Tissue engineered constructs can help model human physiology in vitro, expanding the methods of which scientists can study cancer development and treatments. Three-dimensional constructs provide a new frontier for cancer research as they simulate tumour progression, migration, and invasion by mimicking native conditions, compared to the previous method of studying cancers through two-dimensional cancer cultures which, could not have modeled any of these aspects. Overall, cancer modeling in tissue engineered constructs serve as a new method of studying cancer which can further our knowledge the disease.
Cancer modeling proves challenging, however. Scaffold materials must be able to withstand the mechanical changes in the extracellular matrix that cancer cells bring about in proliferation. It is noted that breast cancer tissue can be ten times more rigid than normal tissues. Another issue with modeling is the vascularization of tissue constructs. Scientists are already facing challenges with creating vascularized networks within in vitro constructs. Read more about vascular tissue engineering here.
Cancer cells (I9.2)
New approaches to cancer modeling leads to new treatments that are better than current therapies (I9.3)
DRUG DISCOVERY
Another noteworthy application of tissue engineering is the ability to study the effects of pharmaceutical drug candidates. In the United States, drugs go through an average of 15 years of studying and preclinical evaluation before hitting the markets. Furthermore, any new drugs have only an 8% chance to be approved.
Currently, drug metabolism and efficacy can not be studied very efficiently and accurately in animal subjects do not mirror systems in human and cannot be necessarily applied. To curb this issue, scientists attempted to create animals with human organs to test drug efficacy, however, this strategy is both expensive and challenging to take up.
By using tissue engineered constructs, companies will not have to use animal and human test subjects for evaluation. Three-dimensional cultures improve the efficiency of clinical trials by studying the efficacy and complications of drugs on target tissues and the liver. Engineered livers play a vital role in studying the effects of drug toxicity and metabolization. The use of engineered tissues in drug discovery and testing provides a safe and accurate alternative to current methodologies.
Various variables in studying tissue engineering drug discovery(I9.4)