Technical progress in materials science and bioprinting has for the past few decades fostered considerable advances in medicine. More recently, the understanding of the processes of self-organization of cells into three-dimensional multicellular structures and the study of organoids have opened new perspectives for tissue engineering. Here, we review microengineering approaches for building functional tissues, and discuss recent progress in the understanding of morphogenetic processes and in the ability to steer them in vitro. On the basis of biological and technical considerations, we emphasize the achievements and remaining challenges of bringing together microengineering and morphogenesis. Our viewpoint underlines the importance of cellular self-organization for the success of tissue engineering in therapeutic applications. We reason that directed self-organization, at the convergence of microengineering and cellular self-organization, is a promising direction for the manufacturing of complex functional tissues.

在过去的几十年中，材料科学和生物打印技术的进步促进了医学的长足进步。最近，对细胞自组织为三维多细胞结构的过程的了解以及类器官的研究为组织工程学开辟了新的前景。在这里，我们回顾了用于构建功能组织的微工程方法，并讨论了对形态发生过程的理解以及在体外指导它们的能力方面的最新进展。基于生物学和技术方面的考虑，我们强调将微工程和形态发生融合在一起的成就和仍然存在的挑战。我们的观点强调了细胞自组织对于组织工程在治疗应用中成功的重要性。