Applications for biomedical purposes

Such a critical situation needed new solutions, instead of waiting for human donors. The solution was found in the creation of a new science, tissue engineering. Tissue engineering (or regenerative medicine) is the use of a combination of cells, engineering and materials methods to improve or replace biological functions (tissue, organs, etc.) [42]. 

In 2003, the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the US published a report entitled The Emergence of Tissue Engineering as a Research Field [43], which gives a thorough 

Cells are often implanted or seeded into an artificial structure capable of supporting three-dimensional tissue formation. These structures, typically called scaffolds, are often critical, both ex vivo and in vivo, to recapitulating the in vivo milieu and allowing cells to influence their own microenvironments. 

A number of different methods have been described in literature for preparing porous structures to be employed as tissue engineering scaffolds. Each of these techniques presents its own advantages, but none is devoid of drawbacks [45]  

O2 and nutrients supplied from liquid cell culture medium 

---