Control systems in tissue engineering

Tissue engineering has a lot of potential for growth. Recently I came across an article on Technology Review mag published by the famous institution MIT..... that discussess the Tissue engineering.

They quote....."Tissue engineers are ambitious. If they had their way, a dialysis patient could receive a new kidney made in the lab from his own cells, instead of waiting for a donor organ that his immune system might reject. Likewise, a diabetic could, with grafts of lab-made pancreatic tissue, be given the ability to make insulin again. But tissue engineering has stalled in part because bioengineers haven't been able to replicate the structural complexity of human tissues. Now researchers have taken an important first step toward building complex tissues from the bottom up by creating what they call living Legos. These building blocks, biofriendly gels of various shapes studded with cells, can self-assemble into complex structures resembling those found in tissues."

According to a bioengineer Ali Khademhosseini, at Harvard Medical School
"Living tissues have repeating functional units. The liver, for example, is made
up of repeated hexagonal lobes. Each has a central branching vessel that brings
in blood for filtration; the vessel and its branches are surrounded by
toxin-filtering cells surrounded by canals that transport filtered blood to
other vessels leading out of the organ".

Khademhosseini method works on the basic principle that water and oil don't mix.

"When water is dropped into a pool of oil, it will form a sphere, the shape that
minimizes its interaction with the oil."Bioengineers seed cells onto the outside
of polymer scaffolds in the hopes that they will migrate inside and organize
themselves.

Controlling the cell organization is the most important part of the entire process. We might soon be able to replicate parts like pancreas, liver and heart muscle.

It might seem very far fetch at this point of time but I do believe that automation companies would come up with higher competant control systems for tissue engineering.

To know more about Khademhosseini wonderful research you may visit http://www.technologyreview.com/Nanotechhappy reading!!