A Tissue Engineer Sows Cells and Grows Organs - New York Times: "In April, when the two-year-old institute that Dr. Atala directs for Wake Forest’s School of Medicine moved into some 50,000 square feet of space in the Piedmont Triad Research Park, it became one of the world’s largest research facilities dedicated to regenerative medicine, a practice that aims to refurbish diseased or damaged tissue using the body’s own healthy cells.

The field of tissue engineering is large in this endeavor, with researchers like Dr. Atala exploring a basic approach. To repair or replace parts, they seed a biodegradable scaffold with cells and insert it into the body, where the cells, if all goes smoothly, mature into functioning tissue. "