Table Of ContentBIOMEDICINE
Edited by Chao Lin
Biomedicine
Edited by Chao Lin
Published by InTech
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Copyright © 2012 InTech
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First published March, 2012
Printed in Croatia
A free online edition of this book is available at www.intechopen.com
Additional hard copies can be obtained from [email protected]
Biomedicine, Edited by Chao Lin
p. cm.
ISBN 978-953-51-0352-3
Contents
Preface IX
Part 1 Regenerative Medicine 1
Chapter 1 Encapsulation and Surface Engineering of Pancreatic Islets:
Advances and Challenges 3
Veronika Kozlovskaya, Oleksandra Zavgorodnya
and Eugenia Kharlampieva
Chapter 2 In-Situ Forming Biomimetic
Hydrogels for Tissue Regeneration 35
Rong Jin
Part 2 Gene Medicine and Nanobiomedicine 59
Chapter 3 RNA Interference for Tumor Therapy 61
Wei Xia and Jing Ni
Chapter 4 Bioreducible Cationic Polymers
for Gene Transfection 85
Chao Lin and Bo Lou
Chapter 5 Stable Magnetic Isotopes
as a New Trend in Biomedicine 105
Vitaly K. Koltover
Part 3 Medical Device Performance 123
Chapter 6 Optical Fiber Gratings in Perspective
of Their Applications in Biomedicine 125
Vandana Mishra and Nahar Singh
Chapter 7 Additive Manufacturing
Solutions for Improved Medical Implants 147
Vojislav Petrovic, Juan Vicente Haro,
Jose Ramón Blasco and Luis Portolés
VI Contents
Part 4 Public Perception of Biomedicine 181
Chapter 8 Crossings on Public Perception of Biomedicine:
Spain and the European Indicators 183
Eulalia Pérez Sedeño and María José Miranda Suárez
Preface
How to successfully circumvent human disease? How to efficaciously treat human
disease? How to healthily live to a decent age? These problems have baffled our
ancestors for a few centuries. People have attempted to address these puzzled
problems since recorded time, but the answers are often disruptive and even
unreliable in part due to the modification or alteration of medical principles in every
history era. Over the past decades, comprehensive and systematic scientific researches
in cell biology and molecular biology have accelerated the evolution of traditional
medicine. Scientists are now able to investigate these problems on the basis of
molecular levels. Thus, the purpose of this book is to interpret clinical and
fundamental medical findings through the lens of 21st-century biomedicine. The
contents of this book provide readers with a broad spectrum of basic biomedical
understanding dealing with regenerative medicine, gene medicine, and medical
devices.
Biomedicine can be divided into four sections: regenerative medicine in Chapter 1 and
2; gene medicine and nanobiomedicine in Chapter 3 to 5; biomedical device
performance in Chapter 6 and 7; and public perception of medicine in Chapter 8. Each
chapter is intently chosen and written by invited experts or physicians from
professional biomedical field, to address hot issues related with contemporary
biomedical science. Additionally, the core concepts in each chapter are highlighted
and the authors wish readers to grasp them smoothly through readily readable
schemes and colourful illustrations. The reference lists also comprise state-of-the-art
reviews, relevant research articles, proceedings in frontier conferences, which are
certainly helpful to beginners for further learning.
Chapter 1 provides a complete overview on current methods for the protection of
isolated pancreatic islets from host immune response. The authors emphasize an
emerging lay-by-lay technique as an innovative route to maintain viability and
functions of islet, implying great promise for the treat of diabetes. Next, in-situ
forming hydrogels as scaffolds for tissue regeneration are summarized in Chapter 2.
Several types of hydrogels that are bioactive and bio-response are outlined in detail
and indicated to be highly desirable for clinical practices. Chapter 3 gives an
introduction on recent progress in RNA interference (RNAi) for cancer therapy,
including mechanisms of gene silencing, cancer-related gene targets for RNAi and
X Preface
RNAi-based clinical trails, although there remain big challenges for clinical RNAi. A
latest research arena in the improvement of clinical drug availability is the
“nanobiomedicine”, since nanoscale carriers loaded with drugs or genes reveal high
possibility for efficient and targeted delivery. Chapter 4 presents the advancement in
disulfide-based cationic polymers, in response to intracellular reducing milieu, as
nano-carriers for gene transfection. Chapter 5 brings a new outlook on stable magnetic
isotopes, which might offer the generation of new pharmaceuticals for biomedical
applications. Medical devices are very crucial for diagnosis and therapy of human
diseases. Chapter 6 provides recent research progress of fiber-gating sensors for
medical diagnosis to facilitate surgery and clinical therapy. The history, working
principle and fabrications of optical fiber gratings are introduced thoroughly. In
Chapter 7, electron beam melting for processing ferrous metallic powders to fully-
dense materials is discussed and this technique is valuable in the field of medical
implants. At last, a review in Chapter 8 points out the evolution process of public
perception on biomedicine in the last decades through survey and statistical data in
Spain and other European countries. This chapter is constructive to alarm scientists to
take into account public awareness on medicine rather than scientific activity alone.
Thus, I truly believe that Biomedicine is a valuable book that may assist readers to be
aware of current advancement in rapidly moving field of biomedicine.
Chao Lin
Tongji University School of Medicine
Tongji University
Shanghai,
PR China
