Special issue

We are pleased to publish the second in a series of special ssues published in the Journal of Biomechanical Engineering that ocus in high-impact areas. The current issue grew out of a Symosium on the Mechanics of Growth and Remodeling in Native nd Engineered Tissues, which took place at the 2008 Summer ioengineering Conference, Marco Island, FL, June 25–29, 2008. The underlying impetus for this symposium was that, despite its arly success, tissue engineers have faced challenges in repairing r replacing tissues that serve a predominantly biomechanical unction. An evolving discipline called “functional tissue engieering” seeks to address these challenges. The principles of funcional tissue engineering address biomechanical considerations of issue engineering approaches to repair and replacements for loadearing structures. The long term in vivo fate of any engineered issue is currently unknown. Clearly, a complete understanding of he in vivo remodeling process requires multi-length scale aproaches. Further, the degree of cellular function and similarity to he native tissue has yet to be determined. The focus of this issue as thus to explore how state-of-the-art work in the Mechanics of rowth and Remodeling in native tissues can be applied to the evelopment of Engineered Tissues. Topics included in this special issue include the latest theoretial concepts and experimental applications to explore how these oncepts can be applied to native and engineered tissue developent, including