Publication : Tissue-Engineered Blood Vessels and the Future of Tissue Substitutes
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It is seldom acknowledged that the very future of tissue engineering hinges upon the successful reproduction of the cardiovascular system. Since the tissue engineering of the heart is discussed elsewhere in this volume, the focus of the present chapter will be on the vascular system. The previous axiom has been clearly extolled in many physiology textbook, but has unfortunately received only recently all the scrutiny it deserves from tissue engineers. Thus, if the brain is the command centre, the human body must have an extremely efficient import/export system for the nutrition of all its tissues with the accompanying disposal of waste or toxic by-products of the normal metabolism. Our own group (LOEX) has been made keenly aware of the paramount role of vasculature by our clinicians. This has been so because every new project we put in place within our research team involve: biomedical biologists, bioengineers, and physicians specialised in the targeted organ. Thus the importance of reproducing functional vascular substitutes was frequently raised in many projects. These discussions were the impetus for our ongoing interest in tissue engineered blood vessels (TEBV) since 1989.