Preface Free

As an emerging area in materials science, smart materials have achieved tremendous developments in recent years. However, there is no book to summarize the research of smart materials in tissue engineering. It's difficult to know where to learn about this exciting topic. This book is an attempt to document the recent advancements for fundamental principles of smart materials in tissue engineering. Bringing together scientists and engineers that work in the different fields of chemistry, physics, biology, materials science, pharmaceutics, medicine, and clinics, this book has a broad focus on smart materials in tissue engineering. By uniting these diverse areas, fresh prospects are opened up and fill the gap between fundamental research and application-originated technology and products. This book tries to introduce the new tissue engineering smart materials to a wide range of audiences, from scientific communities to industrial organizations. The chapters are comprehensively covered from scientific fundamentals to materials manufacturing.

This book has been written by a prestigious group of authors worldwide with an international reputation, including a foreword from the founder of tissue engineering in regenerative medicine, Prof. Robert S. Langer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States. All chapters were written by experts in their field. In order to provide a favor to the less informed readers, it is necessary to summarize in a few lines the essential contents from each chapter. Although all these chapters cover a broad range of topics, occasionally there is an overlap between each contribution. Chapter 1 illustrates smart materials design strategies for tissue engineering. Chapter 2 contains information about smart surfaces and coating materials. Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 highlight the recent advancements in stimuli-responsive polymers and hydrogels for tissue engineering. Chapter 5 deals with self-assembled materials, while Chapter 6 discusses smart natural materials for tissue engineering. Chapter 7 and Chapter 8 are devoted to smart materials for stem cells and the interactions between stem cells and materials. Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 demonstrate the use of conductive polymers and silica materials as smart scaffolds for tissue engineering. Chapter 11 shows how nucleic acid based materials are potential candidates for cell therapy. Chapter 12, Chapter 13 and Chapter 14 deal with smart tissue engineering scaffolds originated from carbon materials, porous materials, and nanofibrous materials. From Chapter 15 to Chapter 19, smart materials which are responsive to different external stimuli are introduced, such as temperature, light, magnetism, and enzymes. Chapter 20 and Chapter 21 discuss the principles of multifunctional materials for tissue engineering. I hope that this summary will be helpful to intrigue readers to have a closer look at the various chapters.

Different from other books about tissue engineering, this book covers the most recent advancements in smart tissue engineering materials which are not described in other books, such as multifunctional smart materials and nucleic acid based materials. It combines different approaches to utilizing smart materials as a substrate for tissue engineering, from self-assembly to surface engineering. It also documents broad topics on smart materials for tissue engineering, from basic designation to clinical applications. This book has a broad audience at different levels. It could be used for graduate students as a textbook for material science and engineering and biomedical engineering. It could also be used by undergraduates as a supplementary textbook for a biological engineering course, a materials engineering course and a chemical engineering course. It could be a good resource for industrialists and medical professionals to learn about the recent products of smart materials in tissue engineering, as well as the applications of smart materials in clinics.

I am grateful to all contributors for their consistent cooperation, but I take responsibility for possible shortcomings. I was fortunate to convince these leading experts from different fields to share their views and visions in the present book. I thank all of them for their efforts in writing comprehensively, as well as covering each assigned topic in detail. They deserve the merit of the book. My acknowledgement also goes to my mentor, Prof. Robert S. Langer, for his kind foreword and continuous encouragement. I want to acknowledge the indispensable support by the staff of the Royal Society of Chemistry, particularly Lindsay McGregor for providing invaluable help with editing aspects. I also would like to thank the readers, from whom I will be very humble to receive comments and feedback. The acknowledgements could never be complete without expressing my sincere gratitude to these individuals. I hope that the book will stimulate junior and senior scientists and engineers to explore the intriguing and virtually possibilities of smart materials for applications in biomedical fields, particularly in tissue engineering.

Qun Wang

Iowa State University

United States