Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 February 2011
The aim of this work is to use biodegradable polymers as a scaffold for self-reconstruction of defective tissue which has the capacity to regenerate; for instance, cartilage, blood vessel, bone, peripheral nervous system, and liver. After seeding parenchymal cells of the target tissue on the scaffold, the cellpolymer composite will be implanted as the core tissue for reconstruction. There is another approach for this purpose, that is, the use of hybrid-type artificial organs, but they have several problems such as poor viability and low capacity. In addition, it is difficult to culture cells on a large enough scale to maintain biofunctionality. However, these problems may be solved if tissue is self-reconstructed in body on a scaffold seeded with the cells originated from the objective tissue [1]