Regenerative Medicine: from enhancing Endogenous Repair to Tissue Engineering

Regenerative medicine aims to restore the structure and function of damaged tissues or organs. This process of postnatal tissue healing mimics developmental processes of tissue formation, and major progress in the understanding of the cellular and molecular basis of tissue formation and remodelling has now provided the knowledge platform to make significant advances in the field of regenerative medicine. Endogenous (intrinsic) repair may be guided and enhanced in different phases of wound healing including inflammation, debris removal and cell recruitment, followed by stimulation of cell proliferation, differentiation and tissue formation. When the stimulation of intrinsic repair is insufficient or inappropriate, leading to scar tissue formation and loss of function, extrinsic repair needs to be considered, i.e. (stem) cell therapies and tissue engineering approaches with growth factor formulations, smart biomaterials, cell populations or combination products that can contribute locally to the tissue repair processes. Here, we provide an overview of the strategies seeking to repair damaged tissues and more in particular in the repair of the locomotoric apparatus and maxillofacial tissue healing.