Abstract
Tissue engineering - defined as the combination of living cells with a biomaterial matrix - holds promise for repair and regeneration of skin, bone, cartilage, nerve and essential organs. Researchers at VA Palo Alto Rehabilitation R&D Center are recruiting patients who require grafting of nerves in the hand, arm or leg; instead of a whole nerve autograft, their damaged nerves or an autograft donor site will be repaired with an artificial graft geometrically and chemically similar to a real nerve seeded with the patient's own Schwann cells. New biomaterials and techniques now being tested for reconstructing peripheral nerves may be applied to the more difficult problem of regeneration of the central nervous system after stroke or spinal cord injury.