Major science and popular science media such as Science, Nature and Scientific American have repeatedly featured tissue engineering as a field ready for revolutionary events that impact not only the postgenomic era in biology, but also health care delivery.
Many structures involved in health and diseases of the craniofacial region are bone and cartilage.
In short, bone and cartilage defects in the craniofacial region are not only a tremendous burden to our society in terms of financial cost and time lost from work, but also a significant threat to the quality of life of virtually every family in this nation and worldwide. Bone and cartilage are widely believed to be the next tissues to be engineered in order to restore, maintain and improve their functions. Realizing the critical importance of bone and cartilage engineering to craniofacial region, our multidisciplinary team of scientists is working diligently to engineering craniofacial bone and cartilage and attempt to apply some of our research findings in clinical situations where bone and cartilage are critically needed in patients. In collaboration with scientists elsewhere, we use a multitude of approaches from automated delivery of biomechanical stimuli, stem cells, cell labeling, PCR to atomic force microscope in attempts to promote maturation and regeneration of bone and cartilage. Our work is made possible by two research grants from the National Institutes of Health.