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REVIEW article
Front. Bioeng. Biotechnol.
Sec. Cell and Gene Therapy
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fbioe.2025.1581292
This article is part of the Research TopicAdvances in Stem Cell Engineering: Paving the Way for Regenerative MedicineView all 3 articles
Bottom-Up Biomaterial Strategies for Creating Tailored Stem Cells in Regenerative Medicine
Provisionally accepted- University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, United States
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Biomaterial-assisted stem cell therapies hold immense promise for regenerative medicine, yet clinical translation remains challenging. This review focuses on recent advances and persistent limitations in applying induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), endothelial colony-forming cells (ECFCs), multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), and embryonic stem cells (ESCs) within engineered microenvironments. We introduce a novel "bottom-up" approach to biomaterial design. This approach focuses first on understanding the fundamental biological properties and microenvironmental needs of stem cells, then engineering cell-instructive biomaterials to support them. Unlike conventional methods that adapt cells to pre-existing materials, this strategy prioritizes designing biomaterials from the molecular level upward to address key challenges, including differentiation variability, incomplete matching of iPSCs to somatic counterparts, functional maturity of derived cells, and survival of ECFCs/MSCs in therapeutic niches. By replicating lineage-specific mechanical, chemical, and spatial cues, these tailored biomaterials enhance differentiation fidelity, reprogramming efficiency, and functional integration. This paradigm shift from passive scaffolds to dynamic, cell-instructive platforms bridges critical gaps between laboratory success and clinical translation, offering a transformative roadmap for regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.
Keywords: Biomaterials, 3D printing, Stem Cells, tissue engineerings, disease modeling, drug screening, Nanoparticles, backpack molecules
Received: 21 Feb 2025; Accepted: 16 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hanjaya-Putra, Cruz-Gonzalez, Johandes and Gramm. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Donny Hanjaya-Putra, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.