Bioprinting and stem cells: the new frontier of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Stem cells (SC) have great capacity for proliferation and differentiation. Some of their characteristics are self-renewal, the ability to differentiate into more than one cell line and the ability to originate functional cells in tissues derived from the same lineage.1 These important properties led several research groups to seek the use of stem cells as the main agent in the treatment of diseases, which has come to be called cell therapy. Promising results from various study groups have stimulated different centers around the world to initiate clinical trials that have investigated the feasibility of SC transplantation for the treatment of various diseases. Many interesting and other disappointing results have been reported.2