Dr. Francesca Gervaso, Institute of Nanotechnology of National Research Council (CNR Nanotec)

When a biological tissue injures because of trauma or pathological events, our body tries to self-repair the defect, but not always this process is successful. To fully understand the mechanisms behind the tissue regeneration events and testing new therapeutics to promote the regeneration, it is of paramount importance to rebuild tissues in vitro, by obtaining tissue analogues. Though cells are undoubtedly an essential component of a tissue, a 3D structure, mimicking the same architecture where the cells live in our body (called extracellular matrix), is crucial to recreate the spatial organization of the original tissue, supporting cell migration, proliferation and differentiation is. 3D structures devoted to host cells, also called scaffolds, differ in material type, spatial architecture, porosity, degradation characteristics, mechanical and surface properties to meet the requirements of the tissue we want to rebuild and make the cells feel at home. This is the challenge of a tissue engineer.