Role of Nanotechnology in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Tissue engineering is a hybrid strategy consisting of engineering principles, methods, and biological sciences to create implantable tissues for replacement or to re-establish injured tissues and organs. To attain this goal, numerous porous scaffold biomaterials that can serve as support for cell adhesion, growth, and differentiation have been reported till date. However, current biomaterials have certain limitations including inefficient for cell growth, inappropriate structural integrity, and incapable to produce sufficient growth factors. Additionally, current biomaterials are also unable to control the cellular functions and various cellular properties. In order to mimic the proper tissue functionality, scaffolds should establish tissue-specific microenvironment to retain the cell behavior and functions. Nanoparticles show promising results as alternatives to overcome the current issues in tissue engineering (TE) and regenerative medicine due to their size-dependent properties. Nanotechnology-based biomaterials can imitate tissue-specific bio environments and control cellular properties such as biological, mechanical, and electrochemical properties. Despite the tremendous development in the arena of nanoparticles-based TE, it requires an in-depth sympathy of the cellular interaction with nano-based 3D scaffolds materials to implement in 574the clinic. This chapter describes an overview of potential applications of nanomaterials in TE and their challenges that require to be addressed for their implementation in the medical field.