RESEARCH ARTICLE
The Role of Bioreactors in Tissue Engineering for Musculoskeletal Applications
Emeka Oragui*, 1, Madhusudhan Nannaparaju1, Wasim S Khan 2
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2011Volume: 5
Issue: Suppl 2
First Page: 267
Last Page: 270
Publisher ID: TOORTHJ-5-267
DOI: 10.2174/1874325001105010267
Article History:
Received Date: 2/1/2011Revision Received Date: 13/2/2011
Acceptance Date: 2/4/2011
Electronic publication date: 28/7/2011
Collection year: 2011

open-access license: This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
Abstract
Tissue engineering involves using the principles of biology, chemistry and engineering to design a ‘neotissue’ that augments a malfunctioning in vivo tissue. The main requirements for functional engineered tissue include reparative cellular components that proliferate on a biocompatible scaffold grown within a bioreactor that provides specific biochemical and physical signals to regulate cell differentiation and tissue assembly. We discuss the role of bioreactors in tissue engineering and evaluate the principles of bioreactor design. We evaluate the methods of cell stimulation and review the bioreactors in common use today.