Stem cells in tissue repair and regeneration

Abstract

The field of tissue repair and wound healing has blossomed in the past 30 years. We have gone from recombinant growth factors, to living tissue engineering constructs, to stem cells. The task now is to pursue true regeneration, thus achieving complete restoration of structure and function.

Figure 1

The left side of the figure shows a non-healing chronic wound due to a combination of venous and lymphatic disease. Both arrows point to the non-migrating epidermis. The solid arrow shows the steep edges at the periphery of the wound, while the dashed arrow is directed at an island of fully epithelialized tissue within the wound bed, but with continued failure of its epidermis to migrate. The right side of the figure is a diagrammatic representation of the different phases of wound healing which, in the case of chronic wounds, are not linear or predictable in their sequence. Also, different areas of the wound are likely to be in a different phase of wound healing. The dashed lines in the diagram point to the fact that this is a dynamic situation and, thus, not easily predictable.