African Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 6 (25), pp. 2897-2909, 28 December 2007   

ISSN 1684–5315 © 2007 Academic Journals        

Review

Scientific and industrial status of tissue engineering

Ali Samadikuchaksaraei

Department of Biotechnology and Cellular and Molecular Research Center, Faculty of Allied Medicine, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. E-mail: samadikuchaksaraei@yahoo.com. Tel: (+98 21) 8805 2984, Fax: (+98 21) 8805 4355

Accepted 13 November, 2007

Tissue engineering is a newly emerging field targeting many unresolved health problems. So far, the achievements of this technology in the production of different tissue engineered substitutes were promising. This review is intended to describe, briefly and in a simple language, what tissue engineering is, what the achievements of this technology are, what the market volume for its products is, what knowledge is needed for practice of this science, how different countries approached this field, and the effects of tissue engineering on national development. This report is primarily written to raise awareness of health authorities and policy makers in developing countries to this technology and help them to approach this multidisciplinary field in a proper way.

Key words: Tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, health care sector, health planning, economics, marketing, developing countries, research.