Tissue engineering - Possibilities and perspectives

Successful tissue engineering requires intensive coorporation between clini cians, biologists (cell culture, gene therapy), chemical engineers (biomate rials) and industrial partners. In case of wound healing tissue engineered constructs have already been applied successfully in burns and chronic woun ds. In order to improve carrier and matrix function biomaterials still have to be optimized. The potential of such constructs might even be enhanced b y gene therapeutical methods. The complex mammalian organism has to be cons idered as the gold standard and the model for perfect tissue engineering. T he problem of vascularization of complex organs yet has to be solved. In ge neral it seems to be more promising to substitute deficient components in v ivo and to rely on modulating influences within the host organism rather th an to create complex organs ex vivo.