@inbook {15999, title = {Natural Polymers in tissue engineering applications}, booktitle = {Textbook on tissue engineering}, series = {C Van Blitterswijk, A Lindahl, P Thomsen, D Williams, J Hubbell, R Cancedda}, year = {2007}, month = {2007-11-14 00:00:00}, publisher = {Elsevier}, organization = {Elsevier}, address = {Amsterdam}, abstract = {

Life as we know it could not exist without natural
polymers. Just think of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA)
and ribonucleic acid (RNA). They are natural polymers
essential in so many life processes. In fact, long
before there were plastics and synthetic polymers,
nature was using natural polymers to make life possible.
In the early 1900s, scientists began to understand
the chemical makeup of natural polymers and
how to make synthetic polymers with properties that
complement those of natural materials. Nevertheless,
for many purposes, we still don {\textquoteright} t think of natural
polymers in the same way as we think about synthetic
polymers.

}, keywords = {natural polymers, TE}, author = {Gomes, M. E. and Azevedo, H. S. and Malafaya, P. B. and Silva, S. S. and Oliveira, J. M. and Silva, G. A. and Sousa, R. A. and Mano, J. F. and Reis, R. L.}, editor = {van Blitterswijk, C.} }