Muscle tissue engineering.

Only recently have scientists come to appreciate that many tissues and cell populations that were formerly considered to be in a terminally differentiated state are capable of division and or dedifferentiation. It is the goal of the tissue engineer to understand and redirect this potential. Muscle tissue-engineering efforts will be directed toward building in vitro replacements for in vivo problems. Tissue-engineering advances will be interdependent with advances in gene therapy techniques to restore function at a cellular level.