Tissue engineering is a biomedical engineering discipline that uses a
combination of cells, engineering, materials methods, and suitable biochemical
and physicochemical factors to restore, maintain, improve, or replace
different types of biological tissues. Tissue engineering often involves the
use of cells placed on tissue scaffolds in the formation of new viable
tissue for a medical purpose, but is not limited to applications involving
cells and tissue scaffolds. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of
biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance, it can be considered as a
field of its own.