The mammalian physiology represents a level of sophistication in materials design, assembly, and function that has yet to be replicated by the modern tools of materials science. Although, the building blocks of our body (pluripotent stem and progenitor cells) are still available within our tissues, the absence of the biological and structural cues that drove the development process early on, in an adult, limits our ability to regenerate after an injury. The goal of regenerative medicine is therefore to recapitulate embryonic events within an artificially defined materials space (i.e., the niche) so that the repair processes can be triggered using our reservoir of stem cells. This engineering of the regenerative niche will require an interdisciplinary exercise involving materials scientists, biologists, and clinicians. The success of this exercise will hinge on our ability to develop materials that incorporate principles of wound healing, lessons from immunology and developmental biology, and knowledge of cellular mechanics and molecular biology such that they can mimic the cellular environment, instruct cells to make fate decisions, and direct the hierarchical organization of tissues. This article presents the current state of this challenge in the implementation of regenerative therapies.

Over the last dozen years, studies at the cell and tissue level have demonstrated that the function and fate of all cells, stem cells in particular, are affected by the collective physical properties of their microenvironments. Meanwhile, biophysical studies at the single molecule level have taught us a great deal about how mechanical forces affect the structure and function of proteins involved in the assembly of cells into tissues. Together, these molecular, cellular, and tissue studies provide insight into the process and importance of mechanotransduction, which is the process by which mechanical forces are transduced into biological signals. This insight should motivate biomimetic approaches to better control cell fate and tissue function.

Tissue engineering is a rapidly developing discipline that has already entered the clinics and will tremendously change patient management in the near future. The aim of classical tissue engineering is to heal damaged or diseased tissues and organs through the combination of cells, biological factors, and porous biomaterials. The resulting, engineered tissue must possess appropriate functional properties to replace or supplement the targeted tissue. This is still a challenge to overcome before tissue-engineered products can be considered a complete success. Classical tissue engineering approaches rely on the use of mature cells expanded in vitro and transplanted alone or seeded in passive 3D scaffolds, which can lead to the loss of cellular phenotype and production of nonfunctional extracellular matrix. An emerging strategy involves the design of bioactive 3D scaffolds with instructive properties able to recruit cells in situ and direct tissue formation. Here, we present and discuss recent efforts to achieve smart scaffolds encompassing macromolecular biofunctionalization and surface design.

Stem cells have received a lot of attention due to great promises in medical treatment, for example, by replacing lost and sick cells and re-constituting cell populations. There are several classes of stem cells, including embryonic, fetal, and adult tissue specific. More recently, the generation of so-called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells from differentiated cells has been established. Common criteria for all types of stem cells include their ability to self-renew and to retain their ability to differentiate in response to specific cues. These characteristics, as well as the instructive steering of the cells into differentiation, are largely dependent on the microenvironment surrounding the cells. Such “stem cell friendly” microenvironments, provided by structural and biochemical components, are often referred to as niches. Biomaterials offer attractive solutions to engineer functional stem cell niches and to steer stem cell state and fate in vitro as well as in vivo. Among materials used so far, promising results have been achieved with low-toxicity and biodegradable polymers, such as polyglycolic acid and related materials, as well as other polymers used as structural “scaffolds” for engineering of extracellular matrix components. To improve the efficiency of stem cell control and the design of the biomaterials, interfaces among stem cell research, developmental biology, regenerative medicine, chemical engineering, and materials research are rapidly developing. Here we provide an introduction to stem cell biology and principles of niche engineering and give an overview of recent advancements in stem cell niche engineering from two stem cell systems—blood and brain.

One of the major challenges in the field of regenerative medicine is how to optimize tissue regeneration in the body by therapeutically manipulating its natural ability to form scar at the time of injury or disease. It is often the balance between tissue regeneration, a process that is activated at the onset of disease, and scar formation, which develops as a result of the disease process that determines the ability of the tissue or organ to be functional. Using biomaterials as scaffolds often can provide a “bridge” for normal tissue edges to regenerate over small distances, usually up to 1 cm. Larger tissue defect gaps typically require both scaffolds and cells for normal tissue regeneration to occur without scar formation. Various strategies can help to modulate the scar response and can potentially enhance tissue regeneration. Understanding the mechanistic basis of such multivariate interactions as the scar microenvironment, the immune system, extracellular matrix, and inflammatory cytokines may enable the design of tissue engineering and wound healing strategies that directly modulate the healing response in a manner favorable to regeneration.

Polymer-coated and polymer-based cardiovascular implants are essential constituents of modern medicine and will proceed to gain importance with the demographic changes toward a society of increasing age-related morbidity. Based on the experiences with implants such as coronary or peripheral stents, which are presently widely used in clinical medicine, several properties of the next generation of cardiovascular implants have been envisioned that could be fulfilled by multifunctional polymers. The challenge is to combine tailored mechanical properties and rapid endothelialization with controlled drug release in order to modulate environmental cells and tissue. Additionally, degradability and sensitivity to external stimuli are useful in several applications. A critical function in terms of clinical complications is the hemocompatibility. The design of devices with improved hemocompatibility requires advanced in vitro test setups as discussed in depth in this article. Finally, degradable, multifunctional shape-memory polymers are introduced as a promising family of functional polymers that fulfill several requirements of modern implants and are of high relevance for cardiovascular application (e.g., stent technology). Such multifunctional polymers are a technology platform for future cardiovascular implants enabling induced autoregeneration in regenerative therapies.

This article reviews polymer behavior at the air-water interface with a focus on the Langmuir technique and spreading processes to gain insight into this interface. The influence of the solvent and the water subphase on some polymer monolayers is discussed. The surface pressure–area isotherms (π–A) are described in terms of the chemical structure and the hydrophilic-hydrophobic balance of selected polymeric systems, with an emphasis on the behavior of the specific diblock copolymer films at the air-water interface. In some cases, molecular dynamic simulation studies can be used to visualize the organization and orientation of polymers at the air-water interface and to identify the main molecular interactions involved in such processes.