Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering

Biomaterials-be it natural or synthetic, alive or lifeless, are those materials that are made up of multiple components and have the capability to interact with biological systems. Biomaterials are generally used in medical applications to augment or replace a natural function.  The most commonly used biomaterials are polymers. All biomaterials meet certain criteria and regulatory requirements before they are assured for use in medical applications. Biomaterial Science has a broad scope that covers the fundamental science of biomaterials through to their biomedical applications.

Tissue engineering is best defined as the use of a combination of cells, engineering materials, and suitable biochemical factors to improve or replace biological functions. Tissue engineering uses sets of methods that helps to replace or repair damaged or diseased tissues with natural, synthetic, or semisynthetic tissue mimics. These mimics can either be fully functional or will grow into the required functionality.

Biomedical engineering is also known as a bioengineering. This field is the bridge between medical and engineering, combining the problem solving and designing skills of engineering with medical biological sciences to advance health care treatment, therapy and including diagnosis. It is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to biology and medicine for healthcare purpose.

Bone and ligament both are the most critical segments in the skeleton framework, giving the significant structure of the assortment of vertebrates and giving protection to delicate tissues. Tissue building of musculoskeletal tissues, particularly bone and ligament, is a quickly creating field. In bone, innovation has focused on bone unite substitute materials and the improvement of biodegradable frameworks. As of now tissue building systems have included cell and quality treatment. The accessibility of development factors and the growing learning base concerning the hereditary qualities and direction of bone arrangement have grown new materials for tissue-building applications.

Grafting is a surgical procedure to move tissue from one site to another on the body, or from another creature, without bringing its own blood supply with it. Instead, a new blood supply grows in after it is placed. Different types of grafting contains  skin grafting, bone grafting, vascular grafting and ligament repair. Skin grafting is most common used grafting technique. Wounds, burns and scars have been dealt with this efficiently. Bone transplantation is a bit difficult but well-known process to replace damaged bones. In Recent years cardiovascular disease are being combatted with the development of a tissue-engineered vascular graft (TEVG). The various approaches to generate TEVGs are scaffold-based methods and tissue self-assembly processes. The channels for vascular grafting are autologous arteries or veins. Synthetic vascular grafts are also available in the market nowadays.

Regenerative medicines  tries to supplant tissue or organs that have been harmed by disease , congential issues,or trauma versus the current clinical system that spotlights essentially on treating the manifestations. The tools used to understand these results are tissue designing, cell treatments, and therapeutic devices and artificial organs.

An organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is a multi-channel 3-D microfluidic cell culture chip that simulates the activities, mechanics and physiological response of entire organs and organ systems, a type of artificial organ.

Biofabrication research leads to the fabrication of advanced biological models, non-medical biological systems and medical therapeutic products. It is an automated production of organs and tissue that deals with health challenge in medicine. Biofabrication technology is a platform for a broad range of tissues such as nervous, cartilage, blood vessels and skin, as well as complete organs such as kidney, liver and the heart. It is used for 3D printing which is also known as the theory of additive manufacturing. Its main objective is to merge cells and fibres into an independent construct that can substitute wounded tissue.

3D Bioprinting is the way toward making three-dimensional structure of biomaterials by meusing computer conrol. As for the nano-scale measurements the biomaterials are arranged into three sorts as-Nano-molecule (3D), Nano-fiber(2D) and Nano-sheet (1D). 3D bioprinting is the arrangement of various cell designs by utilizing printing strategies alongside the layer-by-layer technique to create tissue mimetic structures with no damage in cell work that can be additionally utilized as a part of tissue building. Electrospinning innovation implies deposition of  polymer nanofibers on an object by utilizing high voltage to a fluid polymer arrangement. Bioprinting helps in the examination of medications and pills by printing tissues and organs. It is likewise utilized for smaller scale device and microarrays.

Dental Biomaterials incorporate both the utilization of regular and manufactured dental tissues like veneer, cementum, dentin and polymers, composites, ceramics. Dental bio materials are utilized to repair decayed teeth. These biomaterials are of various kinds i.e. orthodontics, supports, inserts, and so forth. Orthodontics is a piece of dentistry that prompts the arrangement of teeth and jaws to enhance oral wellbeing. Props are principally utilized as a part of orthodontics to fix teeth and to treat anomalies in teeth. Dental inserts are the barrel shaped structures made up of titanium, which is utilized as a substitute for any missing teeth. Prosthesis implies a device intended to supplant a missing piece of the body Diseased or missing eyes, arms, hands, legs, or joints are supplanted by utilizing prosthetic  devices. False teeth are known as dental prostheses.

Polymers are the macromolecules accomplished from different rehashed subunits. Polymers are utilized as biomaterials and that can be of the accompanying sorts, i.e., Natural Polymers: Chitosan, Collagen, Alginate. These characteristic polymers are utilized for sedate conveyance, wound dressing and tissue designing. Engineered Polymers like Polyvinylchloride (PVC),Polypropylene, Polymethyl methacrylate are utilized as a part of inserts, therapeutic expendable supplies, dressings, and so on. Biodegradable Biomaterials: Polyactide, Polyglycolide, and so on. It is profitable as it recovers tissue and does not leave remaining follows on implantation. For the most part utilized for tissue screws, ligament repair and medication conveyance frameworks. Biopolymers are those which are built up from the living life form example DNA, RNA, proteins, sugars, and so on. It can likewise be utilized as packaging material. Polymer composites are broadly utilized for preparing medical implants.

Tissue engineering along with regenerative medicine can be used to create ‘Scaffolds’ in the human body which are used to support organs and organ systems that may have been damaged due to an injury or disease. Fundamentally, this process involves the in vitro construction of a patch (or a graft). This patch is made from a combination of stem cells and an artificial extracellular matrix (biomaterial). The engineered patch can then be surgically implanted into affected areas of the body that need reconstruction.

Scaffolds must be capable of performing the following functions:

• Allow cell attachment and migration

• Deliver and retain cells and biochemical factors

• Enable diffusion of vital cell nutrients and expressed products

• Exert certain mechanical and biological influences to modify the behaviour of the cell phase

Aging is the successive or dynamic change in a living being that prompts  to an increased risk of debility, disease, and death. Skin loses its juvenile luster with age. Permanent pimples, wrinkles and texture irregularities are very common. With advent of cosmetic surgery this can be reversed. The process is generally based on layer by layer removal of the surface cells and the new cells are thus formed.

• Cosmetic surgery

• Laser resurfacing of skin

• 3D skin rejuvenation

A Bioartificial organ is a designed device or tissue which is consolidated into human body to supplant a characteristic organ .It joins biomaterials and natural cells for completely substitution of patient disappointment organs. Example of bioartificial organ are bioartificial kidney device, joining biomaterials and kidney epithelial cells for enhanced blood detoxification, bioartificial pancreas device, consolidating exemplification of pancreatic cells for treatment of diabetes, bioartificial lungs for considering lung recovery.

Tissue Regeneration implies regrowing or reestablishing the harmed or missing organ part from the rest of the tissue. Numerous embryonic tissues, for example, the spinal cord, heart, and limbs, have some regenerative potential and may use systems that can be exogenously initiated in adult tissues. By utilizing smaller molecular and cell pathways embryonic improvement can be restated by utilizing Tissue Regeneration.

Stem cell therapy is developing fast in the field of biomaterials. Combining stem cells with biomaterial scaffolds provides a promising response in engineering tissues and cellular delivery.  Recent stem cell technologies have opened several ways for biomaterial research, such as developing disease models, drug development, tissue regeneration and development of functional organoids. The process also aim for development of adult stem cell-based tissue engineered biomaterial implants and organoids. This technique develops the cells to generate and use induced Pluripotent cells (iPS) from differentiated cells.

Soft tissue inserts applications include building standards, the execution of an embedded device inside the host which principally relies on both the sort of materials utilized and the manufactured outline of the device or embed. The underlying determination of material ought to be founded on sound materials designing practice and additionally prerequisites. The final material Selection judgment on the appropriateness of a material relies on in-vivo clinical execution perception of the embed for particular time span. The necessity of in-vivo perception speaks to significant issues in the choice of proper materials for use inside human body, the execution of an embed which may rely upon the manufacture plan instead of the materials, expertise of the specialists and the earlier state of patients.

The current combination of developing nanotechnology into tissue science and biomedicine has achieved an extent of creative nano building endeavors for the repair and recovery of tissues and organs. Nano patterns alone can direct the differentiation of stem cells without involvement of exogenous soluble biochemical factors. This control of cell conduct by nanotechnology in tissue engineering is one of the case exhibiting the huge utilizations of nanotechnology in biomedicine.

Implant or Implantation refers to insertion of biological material into the body for diagnosis or therapies. Biomaterial is generally used in dental Implants. There are different classification of dental implants they are based on Surface of implant, Implant design, the Type of material used and Attachment mechanism.

Cancer is the most dreaded disorder. The exact cause and mechanism is yet not known. Diverse research is going on find an answer. Tissue engineering has been inter-related with cancer to find some ways. Using tissue engineering to comprehend cancer can be done by fabricating 3D constructs that will mimic tumor cells and help us know how cancer cell grow, spread and metastasize at the biological level. For testing drugs, 3D structures are more reliable. One approach has been to engineer tumors and understand mechanism of drugs administered on then in vitro. Tissue engineered cancer models can be used as test therapies.

Biomaterials plays an important role in delivery systems mainly in drug delivery. Numerous kinds of drug delivery systems, surgical implants, wound closure devices, artificial organs are usually dependent on biomaterials. Biomaterials are helpful in gene delivery that in due course make transgene expression and tissue growth along with regeneration of tissues. Immunomodulation i.e., modulating or altering several features of immune system, the power and competence of regenerative medicine therapies can be enlarged. At present, hydrogels are termed as the smart drug delivery system, that are often used as sustained drug release systems, which has importance in the healing of cancer. Extracellular media or vesicles are used for the macromolecular drug delivery. Biomaterials can also be used for islet delivery, for imaging, etc.

Biophotonics is the investigation of optical procedures in human organic frameworks, which happens normally and in bioengineered or biosynthesized materials.. The imperative element of this field is imaging and recognizing cells and tissue. It likewise includes infusing fluorescent markers into an organic framework to track cell elements and medication conveyance. Biophotonics is correspondingly used to examine organic materials or materials with resources like natural material, i.e., scrambling material, on a tiny or plainly visible scale. On the minute scale basic applications include microscopy and optical intelligence tomography. On the plainly visible scale, the light is diffuse and applications regularly manage diffuse optical imaging and tomography. Biomedical optics emphasizes on the outline and utilization of cutting edge optical procedures to determine issues in drug and science.

Late advances applying mammalian tissue building to in vitro plant cell culture have effectively refined single plant cells in a 3D microstructure, prompting the revelation of plant cell practices that were already not visualized. Creature and plant cells share various properties that depend on a various levelled microenvironment for making complex tissues. Both mammalian tissue designing and 3D plant culture utilize customized frameworks that adjust a cell's conduct from the underlying culture utilized for seeding. For people, these methods are altering human services systems, especially in regenerative medication and malignancy thinks about. For plants, we foresee applications both in principal research to contemplate morphogenesis and for engineered science in the agri-biotech division.