The real time and non-invasive functional assessment of engineered tissues pre- and post-implantation is a key technical challenge in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The success of the emerging tissue engineering and regenerative medicine discipline will largely depend on the availability of such technology. Most current biochemical techniques are destructive and do not have the capabilities to accurately assess tissue functionality. Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques are leading non-invasive tools in assessing the overall success of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The proposed book is designed to provide in-depth analysis of advances made in the MR assessment of tissue engineering applications during the last decade. Since engineered tissues and tumor share the common characteristics of high cell density combined with fast and abrupt ECM growth, and because the MR tools used in tumor imaging can also be applied for tissue engineering applications, the book will also contain a few chapters on tumor imaging using magnetic resonance. Currently there are no such books on the topic and the proposed book aims to close this gap.
