Tissue Engineering and Bioengineering of Organs
The contemporary term tissue engineering and bioengineering of organs and tissues implies a medical biotechnology aimed at the restoration of the damaged elements of the tissues (specific cells of an organ, cell components of the connective tissue, extracellular matrix, microcirculatory vessels, nerves and nerve fibers, intercellular contacts) in order to reconstruct and restore the damaged function with the unmanipulated or cultivated autologous and/or donor cell systems and/or artificial biodegradable biopolymer matrixes and scaffolds adding various growth factors and other biologically active substances.
The terms tissue engineering and bioengineering are synonymous in their clinical content, but in clinical practice the bioengineering more often refers to the reconstruction of cells in tissues with the gene constructions in the form of vectors, RNA or DNA plasmids (gene engineering), different protein molecules (peptide engineering), intracellular nanoconstructions (nanobioengineering), distant multi-wave electromagnetic impact (multi-wave distant radiobioengineering) as well as use through such low-invasive technologies as the regional program perfusion for remodeling of a vascular bloodstream, stereotaxic cell transplantation, implantation of electrical stimulators and other.
Meanwhile, the tissue engineering implies open surgeries aimed at the restoration and repair of the damaged tissue via an open surgical approach. In general, the tissue engineering involves use of the heterogenic matrixes and the cells which are specific for the damaged tissue. We have performed fifty two surgeries to reconstruct the spinal cord with the tissue engineering methods. We implant the biodegradable polymer matrix SpheroGel© into the site of injury of the spinal cord; the matrix also contains the neural stem cells cultured from the patient’s nasal olfactory sheath cells, the neuroglial cells of the same origin, and his own unmanipulated bone marrow progenitor cells along with the nerve growth factors. By now we have carried out the largest number of the surgeries for spinal cord tissue engineering in the world.
Our technology has been patented in the USA.