Designing Biomaterials To Direct Stem Cell Fate

Chaenyung Cha,† William B. Liechty,‡ Ali Khademhosseini,†,Δ,§ and Nicholas A. Peppas‡,#,z,*

†Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
‡Department of Chemical Engineering, #Department of Biomedical Engineering, zCollege of Pharmacy, The University of Texas, Austin
§Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, ΔWyss Institute for Biology Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, United States

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/nn304773b

This is a perspective on the design of biomaterials to direct stem cell fate.  The authors discuss factors such as, cell-responsive ligands, soluble factors, mechanical stimuli, and a relatively new example- targeting glycosaminoglycans.