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 fullydense 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

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 fullydense 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

**Chao Lin** 

Shanghai, PR China

Tongji University

Tongji University School of Medicine

aware of current advancement in rapidly moving field of biomedicine.

**Part 1** 

**Regenerative Medicine** 

**Part 1** 

**Regenerative Medicine** 

**1** 

*USA* 

**Encapsulation and Surface Engineering of** 

Veronika Kozlovskaya, Oleksandra Zavgorodnya

*Department of Chemistry, University of Alabama at Birmingham* 

and Eugenia Kharlampieva

**Pancreatic Islets: Advances and Challenges** 

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is a chronic autoimmune disease representing a major health care problem worldwide (Tierney et al., 2002). T1D is caused by islet-reactive immune T cells that destroy insulin-producing pancreatic β-cells. Transplantation of insulin-producing pancreatic islets by their injection in vascularized organs has been recently recognized as a promising path to curing diabetes (Meloche, 2007; Robertson, 2000). However, despite the significant promise, the clinical application of the procedure remains limited due to (a) limited supply of islets suitable for transplantation, (b) a hypoxia because of a low tension of oxygen at the implantation sites and (c) an acute rejection during transplantation. One of the challenges is associated with isolation and culturing islets *in vitro* before injection. In the pancreas, endocrine cells of the islet clusters are separated from exocrine cells by a discontinuous mantle of collagen fibers defining their respective basement membrane. During collagenase isolation of islets from the pancreas, further disruption of the islet mantle results in preparations exhibiting various morphological changes (islet fragmentation, fusion) under routine tissue culture conditions, particularly in human islets (Lacy & Kostianovsky, 1967). Attenuation of islet viability and functionality accompanies these morphological changes. The second issue is associated with islet transplantation which requires immunosuppression to protect the donor islets from the host immune response and prevent implant rejection and post-surgery inflammations (Ricordi & Strom, 2004). Despite the fact that a range of immunosuppressive drugs have demonstrated pharmacologically inhibitory effects on pro-inflammatory cytokines (Riachy et al., 2002; Contreras et al., 2002; Lv et al., 2008; Stosic-Grujicic et al., 2001), the use of immunosuppressive molecules is very specific since they can induce non-specific suppression of the immune system resulting in serious side effects and increased risk of infection which can work against the benefits of a transplant (Narang & Mahato, 2006). These issues have inspired the development of a number of strategies to prevent immunogenic reactions and stabilize islet morphology and functionality, both *in vitro* and following transplantation *in vivo* (Chandy et al., 1999; Abalovich et al., 2001). Two major approaches have been introduced to prevent immunogenic reactions on the islet surfaces: macro and microencapsulation of the islet cells and islet cell surface modification (Fig. 1) (De Vos et al., 2003; Panza et al., 2000; Scott &

**1. Introduction** 

Murad, 1998; Opara et al., 2010).
