Stepping Stone Symposia Conference on Medical Technology ...

Yilin CAO
Shanghai JiaoTong University
yilincao@yahoo.com
Research interests
Tissue engineering; plastic surgery
SSSTC <strong>Stepping</strong> <strong>Stone</strong> Symposium on Medical Technologies, 27–28 September 2012
Educational history
1991 Ph.D. Dept. of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery affiliated Shanghai Second Medical University
1988 M.S. Dept. of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery affiliated Shanghai Second Medical University
1975 M.D. Dept. of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery affiliated Shanghai Second Medical University
Previous positions
2011–2012 Adjunct Professor, The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine
2006–present Dean, The Plastic Surgery Hospital Of Chinese Academy Of Medical Science
2003–present Director, National Tissue Engineering Center of China
1999–present Vice Dean, Shanghai 9th People’s Hospital, Shanghai JiaoTong University School of Medicine
Yilin Cao, M.D., Ph.D.
Tissue engineering research: From bench to bedside
Tissue engineering; tissue engineered bone; blood vessel; tendon; skin and cartilage
Tissue engineering is the specialty that applies the techniques of biology and engineering to the generation of new
tissues. During the past 15 years, tissue engineering research has advanced so rapidly that generation of human
tissue for tissue repair has become a reality.
In our tissue engineering center, most works performed in recent years focused on the construction of different
types of tissues in large animal models for tissue repair. These works include tissue engineered bone to repair
sheep cranial bone defect, goat femoral bone defect and dog mendibular bone defect with successful results.
Using isolated autologous chondrocytes, articular cartilage defect was successfully repaired with tissueengineered
hyaline cartilage in a porcine model using bone marrow stem cells. Following successful engineering of
tendon tissue in a hen model using isolated tenocytes, we now are able to engineer tendon using isolated dermal
fibroblasts in a porcine model. In recent year, we have successfully engineered blood vessel, tendon, skin and
cartilage tissue in vitro. In addition, we have also applied engineered bone tissue for clinical bone defect repair with
success. Our experience in tissue construction and clinical application indicates that tissue engineering has great
potential for tissue repair and tissue regeneration and will become a new therapy approach in plastic and
reconstructive surgery.
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