Cardiac tissue engineering aims at repairing damaged heart muscle and producing human cardiac tissues for application in drug toxicity studies. This book offers a comprehensive overview of the cardiac tissue engineering strategies, including presenting and discussing the various concepts in use, research directions and applications. Essential basic information on the major components in cardiac tissue engineering, namely cell sources and biomaterials, is firstly presented to the readers, followed by a detailed description of their implementation in different strategies, broadly divided to cellular and acellular ones. In cellular approaches, the biomaterials are used to increase cell retention after implantation or as scaffolds when bioengineering the cardiac patch, in vitro. In acellular approaches, the biomaterials are used as ECM replacement for damaged cardiac ECM after MI, or, in combination with growth factors, the biomaterials assume an additional function as a depot for prolonged factor activity for the effective recruitment of repairing cells. The book also presents technological innovations aimed to improve the quality of the cardiac patches, such as bioreactor applications, stimulation patterns and prevascularization. This book could be of interest not only from an educational perspective (i.e. for graduate students), but also for researchers and medical professionals, to offer them fresh views on novel and powerful treatment strategies. We hope that the reader will find a broad spectrum of ideas and possibilities described in this book both interesting and convincing. Table of Contents: Introduction / The Heart: Structure, Cardiovascular Diseases, and Regeneration / Cell Sources for Cardiac Tissue Engineering / Biomaterials: Polymers, Scaffolds, and Basic Design Criteria / Biomaterials as Vehicles for Stem Cell Delivery and Retention in the Infarct / Bioengineering of Cardiac Patches, In Vitro / Perfusion Bioreactors and Stimulation Patterns in Cardiac Tissue Engineering / Vascularization of Cardiac Patches / Acellular Biomaterials for Cardiac Repair / Biomaterial-based Controlled Delivery of Bioactive Molecules for Myocardial Regeneration

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Prof. Smadar Cohen is the Claire and Harold Oshry Professor in Biotechnology and co-founder of the Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel. Her main research interests are in the design of bio-inspired materials and advanced bioreactors for tissue engineering and regeneration as well as implementation of intelligent nano-sized delivery systems for therapeutics. Professor Cohen published over 150 publications, edited two books and is the inventor of over 35 US patents. Emil Ruvinov obtained his Ph.D.in Biotechnology Engineering in 2011 from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, where he is now a post-doctoral researcher at the Cohen group. His main area of research is biomaterial-based drug delivery for tissue engineering and regenerative medicine applications. He has published several papers and co-authored several book chapters in the field of cardiac tissue engineering and regeneration. Yulia Sapir obtained her B.Sc. (2008, Suma Cum Laude) and M.Sc. (2010, Suma Cum Laude) in Biotechnology Engineering from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, where she is now a Ph.D. candidate (Azrieli Fellow) in Prof. Smadar Cohen's laboratory. Her main research interests is engineering of functional cardiac patch, focusing on innovative biomaterial design and investigation of different stimulation patterns.