Cellular Engineering is the Application of Materials Patterned on a Nano and Micro-Metric Scale

An animal's biological cells are arranged in various patterns, with the orientation and alignment of the cells varying depending on the tissue's function. Skin, for example, is composed of tightly packed cells, however this sheet can be extended (a bit) in the plane of the sheet. A tendon, on the other hand, is roughly cylindrical in shape and is made up of cells that are lined in the cylindrical axis' direction. Cues are delivered to proliferating cells that influence their eventual position and orientation during the development of the adult animal from the egg. These cues might be chemical in nature, such as the presence of adhesion-promoting proteins, or they can be merely physical, such as a cell's sensitivity to its surroundings' topography. Not just in developmental biology, but also in tissue engineering, an understanding of the signals that control cell placement and alignment is critical. The new cells must be aligned and positioned correctly if tissue is to be healed. Organ reconstruction is considerably more difficult; cells of various types must be oriented appropriately to one another, and the entire complex of tissue cells, blood vessels, and sensory cells (for example, nerve cells) must work together correctly.