Setting A Course For The Future Of Tissue Engineering

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Article Date: 12 Dec 2007 - 3:00 PDT

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The editors of Tissue Engineering asked 24 leaders in the field what critical steps are needed for tissue engineering to achieve broad critical success by the year 2021 and published their findings in the December 2007 issue (Volume 13, Number 12). Tissue Engineering is a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. The paper is available free online.

A survey of the journal's editorial board - comprising leaders in the field of tissue engineering from around the globe - yielded a clear picture of the key scientific areas in which researchers need to focus their efforts. Authors Peter Johnson, MD, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Tissue Engineering and President and CEO of Scintellix, LLC, as well as Co-Editor-in-Chief Antonios Mikos, PhD, from Rice University in Houston, TX, John Fisher, PhD, from the University of Maryland, College Park, and John Jansen, DDS, PhD, from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, The Netherlands, present a consensus opinion of these critical paths for development and discuss their implications for the field in a report entitled, "Strategic Directions in Tissue Engineering."

These findings can help scientists in academia and industry, teachers, and funding agencies plan for the future, design research projects and training programs, and set a course to enable the field of tissue engineering to reach its goals and potential for success in clinical medicine.

"Our worldwide editorial board was very helpful in sharing critical opinions regarding the future of tissue engineering. We hope that this offering will prove to be useful to all participants in the field" says Dr. Johnson.

Leading the list of strategic initiatives is "angiogenic control," which defines the ability to provide engineered tissues with an adequate blood supply to nourish their development and survival. Next on the list is "stem cell science," which encompasses an understanding of stem cell behavior and how to control their growth, development, and function. Also included among the leading strategic goals identified in the survey is "molecular/systems biology," which describes the importance of integrating knowledge about tissues at the cellular and molecular level with a broader view of how they affect and are affected by the organism as a whole.

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Tissue Engineering is an authoritative peer-reviewed journal published monthly in print and online that brings together scientific and medical experts in the fields of biomedical engineering, materials science, molecular and cellular biology, and genetic engineering. Tissue Engineering is the official journal of the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). Tables of contents and a free sample issue may be viewed online.

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., is a privately held, fully integrated media company known for establishing authoritative peer-reviewed journals in many promising areas of science and biomedical research, including Human Gene Therapy, Stem Cells and Development, and Cloning and Stem Cells. Its biotechnology trade magazine, Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN), was the first in its field and is today the industry's most widely read publication worldwide. A complete list of the firm's 60 journals, books, and newsmagazines is available at http://www.liebertpub.com

The Mary Ann Liebert Companies
140 Huguenot Street, 3rd Floor New Rochelle, NY 10801-5215

Source:
Vicki Cohn
Mary Ann Liebert, Inc./Genetic Engineering News

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