Nanostructured Biomaterials for Regeneration Acknowledgements: The authors would like to acknowledge the financial support from the NIH (NIDCR DE017689, NIDCR DE015384, and NIGMS GM075840: PXM).

Biomaterials play a pivotal role in regenerative medicine, which aims to regenerate and replace lost/dysfunctional tissues or organs. Biomaterials (scaffolds) serve as temporary 3D substrates to guide neo tissue formation and organization. It is often beneficial for a scaffolding material to mimic the characteristics of extracellular matrix (ECM) at the nanometer scale and to induce certain natural developmental or/and wound healing processes for tissue regeneration applications. This article reviews the fabrication and modification technologies for nanofibrous, nanocomposite, and nanostructured drug-delivering scaffolds. ECM-mimicking nanostructured biomaterials have been shown to actively regulate cellular responses including attachment, proliferation, differentiation, and matrix deposition. Nanoscaled drug delivery systems can be successfully incorporated into a porous 3D scaffold to enhance the tissue regeneration capacity. In conclusion, nanostructured biomateials are a very exciting and rapidly expanding research area, and are providing new enabling technologies for regenerative medicine.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/61312/1/3568_ftp.pd