Cartilage Tissue Engineering: What Have We Learned in Practice?

Many technologies that underpin tissue engineering as a research field were developed with the aim of producing functional human cartilage in vitro. Much of our practical experience with three-dimensional cultures, tissue bioreactors, scaffold materials, stem cells, and differentiation protocols was gained using cartilage as a model system. Despite these advances, however, generation of engineered cartilage matrix with the composition, structure, and mechanical properties of mature articular cartilage has not yet been achieved. Currently, the major obstacles to synthesis of clinically useful cartilage constructs are our inability to control differentiation to the extent needed, and the failure of engineered and host tissues to integrate after construct implantation. The aim of this chapter is to distil from the large available body of literature the seminal approaches and experimental techniques developed for cartilage tissue engineering and to identify those specific areas requiring further research effort.