Today, medical devices are able to repair functions, like for example dental removable prostheses. However, this kind of devices get old and cannot not adapt to changes of living organisms. As a consequence, this mechanical solution must interact with other technologies taking into account the living matter.
These technologies related to regenerative medicine (RM) allow to intervene on organs, tissues, cells or genes. Besides knowledge in physiology, cellular biology and vectorization (gene transfer, medicine prescription), these procedures require specific expertise in biomaterials, nano-vectors, cell therapy and tissue engineering associating biomaterials and cells.
Generally speaking, RM aspires to outperform purely reparative procedures and thus to overcome inconveniences due to these procedures. The goal of RM is to restore organs such as they were before the disease, the trauma or the effects of ageing, by regenerating tissues (Traphagen and Yelick, 2009).
RM includes numerous well-known fields such as medical devices and biomaterials but also more recent fields like tissue engineering with cell and gene therapies. RM strategies in the broad sense of the term are part of 4R medicine: “Repair, Replacement, Regeneration and Reprogramming” and are a major research focus in laboratories.