Hybrid approaches to tissue engineering

我们的预期寿命正在增加，我们的寿命正在超过我们的骨骼组织。骨科手术需要从组织替代转向再生。要做到这一点，需要能够刺激人体自身愈合机制的医疗设备。在过去的10-15年里，组织工程学承诺将工程学原理与细胞相结合将导致组织再生，但皮肤是唯一用于临床的组织工程产品。骨组织工程没有成功的原因是还没有开发出满足再生装置(支架)的所有工程设计标准的材料，而且材料与细胞的相互作用还不完全清楚。提出了一种新的混合方法，其中混合是指一种集成的跨学科方法和所需的材料工程创新。必须开发模仿自然组织的机械性能和结构的新材料。其目的是建立一支跨学科的研究团队，能够在组织工程研究的进行方式上带来高度影响的步骤改变，使骨骼组织工程成为临床现实。团队成员将拥有材料化学和加工、多尺度表征、材料建模、细胞生物学、矫形外科和技术转让方面的专业知识。这项大胆的计划将通过改善患者的生活质量、提高整形外科手术的效率、降低手术成本，并通过确保患者更快地康复和重返工作岗位来提振英国经济。核心平台技术将是新型纳米结构(混合)材料，可以在它们在体内重塑并被天然健康组织取代之前刺激骨骼生长或软骨再生。为了使这些复杂材料成为临床现实，必须从原子、纳米到宏观水平对它们进行理解，并在细胞反应方面进行优化。需要计算机模型和改进的表征方法。骨支架必须刺激干细胞产生骨，而为了使血管在整个骨支架中生长并使软骨再生成为现实，可能需要在设备中采用新的细胞生长方式。如果新设备要进入临床，就必须考虑技术转让。我的愿景是建立和领导一个在肌肉骨骼组织工程领域取得成功的世界知名研究小组，其核心是无机/有机杂化材料工程的新领域。该研究小组将吸引最优秀的、国际领先的研究人员来到英国(或留在英国)。它将涉及国际和英国的合作伙伴，以英国为重点，使其处于生物材料和组织工程的前沿。将专注于发展一个充满活力和支持性的研究环境，并发展集团成员的职业生涯，使他们成为从集团工作演变而来的新领域的下一代领导者。

Our life expectancy is increasing and we are outliving our skeletal tissues. There is a need for orthopaedic surgery to move from replacement of tissues to regeneration. To do this medical devices are required that can stimulate the body's own healing mechanisms. Over the last 10-15 years, tissue engineering has promised that combining engineering principles with cells will lead to regeneration of tissues, however skin is the only tissue engineered product used clinically. The reasons skeletal tissue engineering has not been successful is that materials have not been developed that fulfill all the engineering design criteria for regenerative device (scaffold) and how materials interact with cells is not fully understood. A new hybrid approach is proposed where hybrid refers to an integrated interdisciplinary approach and the innovation in materials engineering that is needed. New materials must be developed that mimic the mechanical properties and structure of natural tissues. The aim is to build an interdisciplinary research team that can deliver high impact step changes in the way tissue engineering research is carried out to make skeletal tissue engineering a clinical reality. Team members will have expertise in materials chemistry and processing, multi-scale characterisation, materials modelling, cell biology, orthopaedic surgery and technology transfer. The adventurous programme will benefit the UK by improving the quality of life of patients, increasing the efficiency of orthopaedic surgery, reducing surgical costs and boosting the UK economy by ensuring patients recover and return to work more rapidly.The core platform technology will be novel nanostructured (hybrid) materials that can be designed to stimulate bone growth or cartilage regeneration before they are remodelled in the body and replaced by natural healthy tissue. To make these complex materials a clinical reality they must be understood from the atomic through the nano to the macro level and optimised with respect to cellular response. Computer models and improved characterisation methods are needed. Bone scaffolds must stimulate stem cells to produce bone and new ways of growing cells in devices may be necessary in order for blood vessels to grow throughout bone scaffolds and for cartilage regeneration to become a reality. If new devices are to reach the clinic, technology transfer must be considered. My vision is to build and lead a world renowned research group successful in musculoskeletal tissue engineering with a new field of inorganic/ organic hybrid materials engineering at its core. The research group will attract best, internationally leading researchers to the UK (or to stay in the UK). It will involve international and UK collaborators, with the UK at the focus, placing it at the forefront of biomaterials and tissue engineering. There will be focus on developing a dynamic and supportive research environment and on developing the career of group members so they will become the next leaders of the new fields that will evolve from the group's work.