Look into the Future

Organ and Tissue Replacement

Research Opportunity		Forecast
Increased specificity of immunosuppressive therapy for transplants		Induction of T-cell anergy, improved pharmaceutical approaches to immunosuppression
Induction of central immune tolerance to alloantigens		Introduction of modified donor antigens that will inactivate clonal T-cell populations
Reliable isolation of adult pluripotent stem cells		Bone marrow populations produce cell types for a variety of tissues
Elucidation of signaling pathways controlling differentiation		Impact of extracellular matrix substrate, soluble factors and mechanical factors all important
Development of engineered tissues with complex structures		Decellularization strategies produce matrices from native tissues with complex architectures
Improved understanding of microenvironment and cell-cell signaling during organ development		Upscaling and manufacturing strategies increasingly applied to engineered tissue growth

Authors: Laura E. Niklason, MD, PhD, Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Anesthesiology, Yale University; Robert Langer, ScD, Department of Chemical Engineering, MIT, and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology