Controlled delivery systems for tissue repair and regeneration

Tissue repair and regeneration is one of the major challenges of these years, aimed to restore functional and anatomical properties after traumatic, infective or degenerative diseases. New therapeutic approaches include the use of controlled delivery systems and advanced medical devices for the targeting and delivery of bioactive molecules, mesenchymal stem cells and/or growth factors, providing both the structural integrity and the biochemical information to cells when they are growing into a specific kind of tissue. The review will focus on the repair and regeneration techniques for epithelial and musculoskeletal tissues with the aim to introduce and discuss innovative approaches such as cell and/or growth factors delivery, and newly designed polymeric scaffolds for tissue engineering. After a brief introduction explaining the state of the art referred to the specific tissues (skin, cartilage, bone), repair and regeneration techniques the authors own experience on the topic will be presented and deeply discussed through their experimental works. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.