Microscale biomaterials for tissue engineering

Microscale and high throughput technologies are powerful tools for addressing many of the challenges in the field of tissue engineering. In this chapter, we present an overview of these technologies and their applications in controlling the cellular microenviroment for tissue engineering applications. We focus on concepts and techniques that can be used to create two-and three-dimensional tissue engineering substrates and scaffolds. Common to these techniques is the ability to control one or more aspects of the cellular microenvironment, including chemical and mechanical cues, cell-cell, cell-matrix, and cell-soluble factor interactions. We also discuss recent developments in high throughput techniques that are used to explore the vast number of combinations of factors that comprise the cellular microenvironment.