What lies at the interface of regenerative medicine and developmental biology?

Abstract

At a recent Keystone Symposium on `Developmental Biology and Tissue Engineering', new findings in areas ranging from stem cell differentiation,embryonic pattern formation and organ regeneration to engineered cell microenvironments, synthetic biomaterials and artificial tissue fabrication were described. Although these new advances were exciting, this symposium clarified that biologists and engineers often view the challenge of tissue formation from different, and sometimes conflicting, perspectives. These dichotomies raise questions regarding the definition of regenerative medicine,but offer the promise of exciting new interdisciplinary approaches to tissue and organ regeneration, if effective alliances can be established.

Enhanced Osteogenesis in Cocultures with Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells and Endothelial Cells on Polymeric Microfiber Scaffolds

“…4 One strategy for improving the survival and osteogenesis of tissue-engineered bone grafts involves the addition of endothelial cells (ECs) to cultures containing mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). 5,6 MSCs are promising candidates for tissue engineering applications 7,8 because they have a capacity to differentiate along bone, cartilage, and adipose lineages. [9][10][11][12] Additionally, MSCs reside in the bone marrow perivascular niche, 13,14 which would facilitate paracrine communication between MSCs and ECs.…”

Le cancer et ses gènes insaisissables

“…Premièrement, la renaissance de la biologie des systèmes, discipline dont les racines se trouvent dans l'école viennoise de von Bertalanffy et de Weiss [26], où l'organicisme et les causalités à la fois ascendantes et descendantes sont tous pris en compte, ouvre la possibilité de comprendre des phénomènes complexes [27,28]. Deuxièmement, les nouvelles disciplines d'ingénierie de tissus et la recherche sur les biomatériaux, originalement prévues pour produire des tissus à des fins de transplantation, ont fait renaître l'intérêt de la biophysique pour les études de morphogenèse dans le développement et dans le cancer [29]. Troisièmement, les philosophes et les biologistes théoriques signalent plusieurs difficultés posées par des métaphores trompeuses qui, d'une part, attribuent aux gènes le contenu d'information, et, d'autre part, au génome la capacité de « programmer » l'organisme [30].…”

The Pharmacology of Regenerative Medicine

“…The restriction of the developmental fate of cells to a particular lineage is called commitment and precedes the acquisition of overt specialized features during cell differentiation (Smith, 2006;Sheridan and Harris, 2009). Whether by recapitulation of normal development or through novel bioengineered pathways for tissue formation and organogenesis (Ingber and Levin, 2007), therapies based on regeneration almost inevitably must engage stem/progenitor cells (Nirmalanandhan and Sittampalam, 2009). Although still in its earliest phase, an era of clinical testing of stem cell therapies has begun (Trounson et al, 2011).…”