Tissue engineering has markedly matured since its early beginnings in the 1980s. In addition to the original goal to regenerate damaged organs, the field has started to explore modeling of human physiology “in a dish.” Induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technologies now enable studies of organ regeneration and disease modeling in a patient-specific context. We discuss the potential of “organ-on-a-chip” systems to study regenerative therapies with focus on three distinct organ systems: cardiac, respiratory, and hematopoietic. We propose that the combinatorial studies of human tissues at these two scales would help realize the translational potential of tissue engineering.

自 1980 年代初期以来，组织工程已经显着成熟。除了再生受损器官的最初目标外，该领域还开始探索“在盘子中”建立人体生理学模型。诱导多能干细胞 (iPSC) 技术现在可以在特定患者的背景下研究器官再生和疾病建模。我们讨论了“片上器官”系统研究再生疗法的潜力，重点关注三个不同的器官系统：心脏、呼吸和造血。我们建议在这两个尺度上对人体组织进行组合研究将有助于实现组织工程的转化潜力。