Tissue Engineering, Stem Cells, and Gene Therapies : Proceedings of BIOMED 2002-The 9th International Symposium on Biomedical Science and Technology, Held September 19-22, 2002, in Antalya, Turkey

Recent years have seen an upsurge of significant interest in cell-based technologies. A range of productive and lively debate have taken place relating to tissue engineering, namely the construction of tissues and whole organs using molecularly-designed resorbable biomaterials to create tissue de novo, the potential use of human embryonic stem cells for transplantation and regenerative medicine, with similar potential for adult-derived stem cells, and gene therapy, in relation to cell transplantation. New findings in biomimetic materials, cell signalling pathways, extracellular matrix receptors and ligands, growth factors, and the human genome project, all present particularly motivating sources for the development of research in the evergrowing biomedical field. The purpose of this book is to stimulate further the work in biomedicine and to make the issues of related scientific disciplines accessible to a wider readership by characterising the current state of research in the biomedical field. The lectures and a selection of the presentations from BlOMED 200- th The 9 International Symposium on Biomedical Science and Technology, held in September 2002 in Turkey- constitute the basis for the volume. Tissue engineering, stem cells, cell and gene therapies were the major topics presented and discussed in the symposium. This book is intended to serve as an up-to-date synopsis of the major developments of our area through the work reflected in BlOMED 2002, though not covering all aspects of the topics, due to the natural restrictions within a volume of this kind. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Tissue Engineering: Confronting the Transplantation Crisis....Pages 1-9 Human Embryonic Stem Cells — Realising the Potential....Pages 11-25 Human Embryonic or Adult Stem Cells: An Overview on Ethics and Perspectives for Tissue Engineering....Pages 27-45 Stem Cell Biology and Plasticity....Pages 47-55 Liver Tissue Engineering: Successes & Limitations....Pages 57-67 Pancreatic Islet and Stem Cell Transplantation in Diabetes Mellitus: Results and Perspectives....Pages 69-96 Cell-Based Therapy of Chronic Degenerative Diseases of the Central Nervous System....Pages 97-105 CD34+ Cells in Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation....Pages 107-118 The Effects of Different Growth Factors on Human Bone Marrow Stromal Cells Differentiating into Hepatocyte-Like Cells....Pages 119-128 Oxidative DNA Damage Biomarkers Used in Tissue Engineered Skin....Pages 129-135 Biomarkers Used to Detect Genetic Damage in Tissue Engineered Skin....Pages 137-145 Design Peptide Scaffolds for Regenerative Medicine....Pages 147-163 Progresses in Synthetic Vascular Prostheses: Toward the Endothelialization....Pages 165-177 Adhesion and Growth of Rat Aortic Smooth Muscle Cells on Lactide-Based Polymers....Pages 179-189 Biodegradable Copolymers Carrying Cell-Adhesion Peptide Sequences....Pages 191-199 Polymer Based Scaffolds and Carriers for Bioactive Agents from Different Natural Origin Materials....Pages 201-233 Preparation and Characterization of Natural/Synthetic Hybrid Scaffolds....Pages 235-245 Polyhipe Polymer: A Novel Scaffold for In Vitro Bone Tissue Engineering....Pages 247-254 Pancreatic Islet Culture and Transplantation Using Chitosan and PLGA Scaffolds....Pages 255-264 Challenges and Prospects for Targeted Transgenesis in Livestock....Pages 265-278 Controlled Release of Bioactive Agents in Gene Therapy and Tissue Engineering....Pages 279-296 Interleukin 1 (IL-1) Induces the Activation of Stat3....Pages 297-307 The Use of Antibodies in Diagnosis and Therapy of Cancer....Pages 309-325 Detection of Phage Displayed Peptides with Blocking Ability in Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF) Model....Pages 327-334 Back Matter....Pages 335-340 The first section of the volume consists of four chapters giving perspectives for the current status and potential future of tissue engineering and stem cell technologies. The second section of the volume includes five chapters based on experimental and clinical data. In this section, the role of stem cells in liver tissue engineering, cell-based therapies in diabetes mellitus, and chronic degenerative diseases of the central nervous system, and adult-derived stem cell therapies are discussed. The two chapters of the third section focus on the biomarkers for tissue-engineered products, namely for tissue-engineered skin. The eight chapters of the fourth section discuss novel biomaterials developed for neural-, vascular-, aortic-, bone-, cartilage- and endocrine pancreas-tissue engineering applications. The last section of the book includes chapters on practical gene targeting applications, controlled release in gene therapy and tissue engineering, antibodies in cancer, acute-phase genes and phage-displayed peptide libraries.