Neural Tissue Engineering

Biomaterials have played a role in the nervous system as drug delivery vehicles and scaffolds. The nervous system, both the peripheral and central, are capable of repair and regeneration when the appropriate environment is presented and this suggests that biomaterials could fundamentally change treatment following injury and disease by building a permissive environment for repair. Yet, when engineers have used materials particularly as scaffolds, one of the most striking findings is how similar many of their results have been across types of materials and approaches. Clearly, there is much still to learn. Part of that learning process comes from looking at what has succeeded in the clinic and using that to design the next generation of translatable approaches to treatment.