Endocrine Abstracts

Tissue engineering is a new discipline that capitalizes on the expertise of cell biologists and material scientists. It attempts to create three-dimensional complexes of cells and scaffolds for the purposes of repair, regeneration or replacement of diseased tissue. The tissues and organs are constructed using appropriate cells, genes or other biological building blocks along with bioengineered materials and technologies There is no clear evidence yet as to the most appropriate...

Human embryonic stem (ES) cells are pluripotent cells derived from in vitro fertilized human blastocysts. These cells are a unique scientific and medical resource as they could help us understand early human development, and serve as a source of cells for transplantation medicine. It is estimated that in the USA alone 3,000 patients die every day from diseases that are potentially treatable with embryonic stem cell-derived tissues. We show that in culture human ES cells...