Tissue engineering combines our knowledge of medicine, life sciences, and engineering, and biomimetics within tissue engineering is employed in scaffold design, by both mimicking and improving upon the extracellular matrix structure and chemistry.
The current generation of biomaterials for tissue engineering aims to influence cellular behavior through various means, such as scaffold design, cell-based therapies, and factor-based tissue engineering. Biomimetic scaffold design is a promising approach to positively affect cell response and to successfully engineer the replacement tissues. This chapter serves as an introduction to the field of biomimetic scaffolds in tissue engineering, as well as an overview of a number of state-of-the-art techniques currently being employed to engineer various tissues.