Principles of Tissue Engineering

Edited by:
  • Robert P. Lanza,
  • Robert Langer &
  • William L. Chick
Academic: 1997. Pp.808 $125, £90

The design and engineering of new tissue for functional organs has been a fairly recent endeavour of scientists and engineers working on cell growth and proliferation. The term ‘tissue engineering’ has been around for more than a decade. In 1987, the US National Science Foundation offered the first request for proposals on tissue engineering, and the resulting programme set up not much later supported the research of some of the early pioneers in the field, including one of the coeditors of this volume, Robert Langer.

A bag of silicon implanted in a female chest wall, defying the laws of gravity. From The Secret Family: Twenty-Four Hours Inside the Mysterious World of Our Minds and Bodies by David Bodanis. Simon & Schuster, $27.50 (hbk).

The premise of tissue engineering is simple: to replace diseased organs with newly grown, functional organs rather than with structured biopolymers and other biomaterials. Naturally, the characteristics of cell growth and differentiation become important in designing a functional organ. Although in vitro control of tissue development is necessary for selection of appropriate cells and scaffolds, in vivo synthesis is, of course, the heart of the field.

This new treatise on the principles of tissue engineering is essential for anyone working in the field. It is a vast, detailed and beautifully presented analysis of the cellular principles, in vitro and in vivo behaviour, modelling and applications of tissue engineering. The subject is broader than its immediate application, because successful design and engineering of organs requires an appreciation of peripheral sciences such as biology, materials science, and chemical and mechanical engineering. The book provides sufficient background in all these fields for a reasonably trained scientist to appreciate any problem that may arise in tissue engineering.

The coverage of the subjects is detailed and clearly annotated, with emphasis on the basics of cell growth and differentiation, in vitro control of tissue development, in vivo synthesis of tissues, the use of biomaterials as scaffolds in tissue engineering, transplantation issues and applications in the cardiovascular system, the gastrointestinal system, the kidney, reconstruction of cornea and pancreas, growth of cartilage and bones, and nervous tissue regeneration as well as dental and skin applications.

With a book this size, one cannot but be impressed by the coverage. Regrettably, the multi-authored approach (88 authors contributing 48 chapters) creates some problems despite the editors' considerable efforts. Stricter editing would have avoided occasional awkwardness, as in oversimplifications about lymphocyte engineering (p. 530), self-congratulatory comments by authors (pp. 371 and 663), repetition of material (pp. 55-57 and 115-116) or narrative-like history provided by some researchers when describing their own work.

Smaller errors, misinterpretations or confusing remarks can be found, as in equation 1 (p. 173), where the surface tension γ is misprinted as g; equation 9 (p. 200), which is dimensionally incorrect; the oversimplification of the nonlinear viscoelastic behaviour of materials (notably the modulus definition on p. 205); the one-sided statement about methods to characterize protein adsorption (p. 212), which excludes ATR-FTIR, circular dichroism and radioactive labelling techniques; and the assignment of finite molecular weights to insoluble crosslinked gels (p. 681).

Nevertheless, the book achieves its main goal of educating and directing the novice and advanced researcher in the field.