Every year, surgeons in the United States perform more than 8 million surgical procedures to treat patients who experience organ failure and tissue loss. These procedures save countless lives, but they're imperfect. Organ transplants may have limited effectiveness, and donor organs are in scarce supply. Reconstructive surgery, such as the coronary bypass, often requires multiple incisions, moving tissues from one part of the body to another. And mechanical devices like kidney dialysis machines cannot perform all of the functions of a particular organ and are subject to long-term failure.

Tissue engineering offers new hope. By allowing the patient to regenerate or re-grow tissues naturally, new possibilities for healing become available.

Dr. Christine Schmidt, an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, is leading her team in groundbreaking research on tissue engineering, which has the potential to change the way injuries to the nervous and vascular systems are treated. Their work may eventually enable doctors to assist patients not only in healing, but in healing themselves.

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