The history of tissue engineering

It is essential to know where we have been in order to make reasonable predictions as to where we are headed. This article represents one person’s recollection of the history of Tissue Engineering [1] and consequently, it will most certainly contain some personal biases. I apologize to any individuals whose significant contributions to the field of tissue engineering that may have not been presented here as a result of my own misunderstanding or oversight. In presenting a historical perspective of the emergence of tissue engineering as a multidisciplinary science, I will include the information concerning the development of the journal “Tissue Engineering” and the formation of the society, both of which have evolved during the last decade. Significant future challenges will be discussed. The famous painting by Fra Angeliac entitled, “Healing of Justinian” depicting the brothers Saints Damien and Cosmos Transplanting a Homograft limb onto a wounded soldier is often referred to as the first historical reference to “tissue engineering”. However, Genesis I:1 “The Lord, breathed a deep sleep on the man and while he was asleep he took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that he had taken from the man” [2], may be interpreted as the oldest written reference. As recently as the 1980’s, the term tissue engineering was loosely applied to the use of prosthetic devices and the surgical manipulation of tissues. In actuality, a meeting held in the late 1980’s in Keystone, Colorado entitled, “Tissue Engineering”, sponsored by the National Science Foundation had very little to do with the discipline of tissue engineering as it is viewed today. While the meeting did emphasize efforts to manipulate living tissues and potentially combine them with prosthetic materials, the actual generation of new tissue utilizing biologics, either alone or in combination with appropriate scaffolding material was not a focus of the meeting. The roots of Tissue Engineering, as a modern scientific discipline, dedicated to the generation of new tissue using the principles of engineering in combination with an understanding and application of the biologic sciences, are deeply seated in Boston. To my knowledge, the first recorded use of the term Tissue Engineering, as it is applied today, was in a published article entitled, “Functional Organ Replacement: The New Technology of Tissue Engineering” [3] in “Surgical Technology International” in 1991.