Principles of Tissue Engineering

Citation

Lanza, R., Langer, R., Vacanti, J. P., & Atala, A. (Eds.). (2020). Principles of Tissue Engineering (5th ed.). Academic Press.

Chapter Summary

This is a multi-author reference work: 88 chapters grouped into 23 parts, edited by Robert Lanza, Robert Langer, Joseph P. Vacanti and Anthony Atala. The publisher describes the organization in three layers: the basics of tissue growth and development, the approaches and tools for designing tissues and organs, and a summary of what is known for each organ system. The fifth edition adds a section on emerging technologies, more material on stem cells, and chapters on tissue engineering for food. The chapter titles below are grouped by part.

Introduction (Chapters 1–4)

Four overview chapters: From Mathematical Models to Clinical Reality; Stem Cells as Building Blocks; Moving into the Clinic; and Tissue Engineering: Current Status and Future Perspectives. They frame the field before the technical parts begin.

Parts 1–3: Growth and differentiation; in vitro control; in vivo synthesis (Chapters 5–16)

Part One, The Basis of Growth and Differentiation, runs from Molecular Biology of the Cell and Molecular Organization of Cells through cell–matrix interactions, matrix molecules and their ligands, morphogenesis, and gene expression and cell determination. Part Two, In Vitro Control of Tissue Development, covers culture parameters for engineering functional tissues, principles of bioreactor design, regulation of cell behavior by extracellular proteins, branching morphogenesis, and mechanobiology. Part Three has a single chapter, In Vivo Synthesis of Tissues and Organs.

Parts 4–5: Biomaterials; transplantation (Chapters 17–23)

Part Four, Biomaterials in Tissue Engineering, has chapters on Cell Interactions with Polymers, Polymer Scaffold Fabrication, Biodegradable Polymers and 3D Scaffolds. Part Five, Transplantation of Engineered Cells and Tissues, covers the host immune response, tissue engineering and transplantation in the fetus, and immunoisolation devices.

Parts 6–7: Stem cells; gene therapy (Chapters 24–30)

Part Six has five chapters on Embryonic Stem Cells, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells, Neonatal Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering, Embryonic Stem Cells as a Cell Source for Tissue Engineering and Postnatal Stem Cells in Tissue Engineering. Part Seven pairs Gene Therapy with Gene Delivery into Cells and Tissues.

Parts 8–19: Applications by organ system (Chapters 31–73)

The longest block of the book. The parts are Breast; Cardiovascular System (progenitor cells and cardiac regeneration, cardiac tissue engineering, blood vessels, heart valves); Endocrinology and Metabolism (pancreatic islets, bioartificial pancreas, thymus and parathyroid); Gastrointestinal System (including liver stem cells and hepatic tissue engineering); Hematopoietic System; Kidney and Genitourinary System; Musculoskeletal System (bone, intervertebral disc, articular cartilage, tendon and ligament); Nervous System; Ophthalmic; Oral/Dental Applications; Respiratory System; and Skin (cutaneous epithelial stem cells, wound repair, bioengineered skin constructs).

Parts 20–21: Tissue-engineered food; emerging technologies (Chapters 74–80)

Part Twenty contains Principles of Tissue Engineering for Food and Prospects for In Vitro Cultured Meat. Part Twenty-One covers 3D Bioprinting, Biofabricated 3D Tissue Models, Body-on-a-Chip, Monitoring and Real-Time Control of Tissue Engineered Systems and Bio-Manufacturing for Regenerative Medicine.

Parts 22–23: Clinical experience; regulation, commercialization and ethics (Chapters 81–88)

Part Twenty-Two gives clinical experience with tissue-engineered skin, cartilage, bone, cardiovascular products and organs. Part Twenty-Three closes with The Regulatory Process from Concept to Market, Business Issues and Ethical Issues.

Key Concepts

Introduction and Parts 1–3

• Stem cells as building blocks: the cell source for engineered tissues, introduced in the opening chapters and developed in Part Six.
• Extracellular matrix and cell behavior: chapters on cell–ECM interactions, matrix molecules and extracellular protein signals.
• Bioreactor design: the principles for culturing engineered tissues in vitro.
• Mechanobiology: the role of mechanical forces in tissue development and organ engineering.

Parts 4–7

• Scaffolds: polymer scaffold fabrication, biodegradable polymers and 3D scaffolds.
• Host immune response: the immune barrier to transplanted engineered tissue, with immunoisolation devices as one response.
• Induced pluripotent stem cells: a cell source given its own chapter in the stem cell part.
• Gene delivery: moving genes into cells and tissues, treated in Part Seven.

Parts 8–23

• Organ-specific strategies: the same toolkit applied tissue by tissue, from cartilage and bone to the cornea and the lung.
• Bioprinting and body-on-a-chip: the technologies collected in the emerging-technologies part.
• Regulation and commercialization: the path from concept to market, with business and ethical issues.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Breadth in one place. Eighty-eight chapters span cell biology, materials, bioreactors, transplantation immunology, stem cells, gene therapy and a dozen organ-system parts, with clinical experience and regulation at the end.
• Organized for selective reading. The part structure lets a reader go straight to the organ system or tool of interest, and the publisher describes the book as a balance among biology, chemistry, materials science and engineering.
• Includes the path to the clinic. Part Twenty-Two on clinical experience and Part Twenty-Three on regulation, commercialization and ethics are unusual in a field reference and useful to readers who need to understand translation.
• Updated for the fifth edition. The edition adds iPS cells, stem cell niches, blood components from stem cells, food applications and a section on emerging technologies including bioprinting and body-on-a-chip.

Limitations

• A reference, not a course sequence. With many contributing authors and 88 chapters, it is built for looking things up. Its stated readership is scientists working in stem cell engineering and gene editing and clinicians across specialties, so students new to the field will need a guide to what to skip.
• Uneven depth by design. Each organ part has between one and seven chapters, so coverage of a given tissue depends on how many chapters its part allots.
• Size. The scale makes it difficult to read as a whole, and a one-semester course can only use a fraction of it.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the large reference at the top of the tissue engineering list. Birla's Introduction to Tissue Engineering and van Blitterswijk's Tissue Engineering are textbooks: the first a single-author introduction that treats the field as an engineering design problem, the second an edited course text that moves from fundamentals to specific tissues and translation. Slack's Stem Cells: A Very Short Introduction is a brief overview for non-specialists. Any of these is a better starting point than Lanza.

Yannas's Tissue and Organ Regeneration in Adults is a focused monograph on induced regeneration in skin and nerve. Lanza is the place to look up a topic that a textbook mentions only briefly, or to see what the whole field covers, and it pairs with Yannas when a reader wants both breadth and one in-depth argument.

How to Use This Book

Use it as a reference alongside a textbook, not as a front-to-back read. A reader with a background in cell biology or biomedical engineering can start with the Introduction chapters to see the scope of the field, then go to the part that matches a project or course topic.

• Core for a general course: the Introduction, Part Two on in vitro control, Part Four on biomaterials, the stem cell part, and the clinical, regulatory and ethics parts at the end.
• By interest: pick organ-system parts from 8 to 19 as needed; read the emerging-technologies part for bioprinting and organ-on-chip methods.
• Practical tip: when a textbook introduces a tissue or method, find the corresponding chapter here for a specialist account.