Nano-Biomaterials for the Delivery of Therapeutic and Biological Cues for Regenerative Medicine

Tissue and organ function can be lost due to trauma, disease, defects or ageing. Regenerative medicine aims at generating functional tissues to restore, replace or regenerate the lost tissue or organ function. As a prominent tool to achieve this goal, tissue engineering has been a prolific field of research for over three decades. Its main regenerative strategies consist of three-dimensional (3D) biomaterials, the delivery of therapeutic and biological cues (e.g. growth factors and progenitor cells), and all their combinations. In terms of material requirements, biomaterials have proven instrumental due to their biocompatibility, biodegradability and even ability to mimic the target tissue (bio-inspired materials), thus boosting healing. Nanotechnology has significantly benefited the fields of tissue engineering and drug delivery, by providing new capabilities to biomaterial design. Initially, this new ability to control their design at the nanoscale allowed fine tuning of the cell-material interaction, to enhance the migration, proliferation, and tissue-specific differentiation of progenitor cells. More recently, nano-biomaterials have been engineered to interact specifically with the host immune cells, which was found to enhance functional tissue regeneration. Additionally, bioactive molecules, drugs and cells can be delivered directly in the tissue defect in a spatially- and temporally-controlled fashion. Tissue-engineered nanostructured biomaterials are currently being developed to induce the growth and regeneration of a variety of tissues (e.g. bone, cartilage, skin, muscle, etc.) and organs (e.g. kidney, liver, heart).

Regenerative medicine holds the promise of improving quality of life for individuals, by providing or restoring functional tissues, through the design of off-the-shelf or made-to-order constructs and drug delivery systems. Importantly, regenerative medicine has also the potential to address the problem of the shortage of tissues and organs available for transplantation.

The scope of this Research Topic is to cover recent progress in nano-biomaterials design as it relates to the recovery of tissue and organ function. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

- Nano-biomaterials design as 3D in vitro models to study the healing process;
- Biomaterials-driven in vivo tissue regeneration;
- Spatiotemporally-controlled delivery of nanocues to progenitor cells;
- Design of innovative delivery systems for tissue regeneration;
- The interaction of immune cells and progenitor cells with nano-biomaterials for tissue regeneration;
- Cell delivery for tissue regeneration;
- 3D-printed and bioprinted tissue constructs for tissue and organ regeneration and replacement.