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Evans et al. Plast Aesthet Res 2020;7:28 Plastic and
DOI: 10.20517/2347-9264.2019.53 Aesthetic Research

Review Open Access

Stem cells and tissue engineering in plastic surgery:
an update

Gregory R. D. Evans, Alan D. Widgerow

Department of Plastic Surgery, University of California, Irvine, Orange, CA 92868, USA.
Correspondence to: Prof. Gregory R. D. Evans, Department of Plastic Surgery, University of California, Irvine, 200 S Manchester
Suite 650, Orange, CA 92868, USA. E-mail: gevans@hs.uci.edu

How to cite this article: Evans GRD, Widgerow AD. Stem cells and tissue engineering in plastic surgery: an update. Plast Aesthet
Res 2020;7:28. http://dx.doi.org/10.20517/2347-9264.2019.53

Received: 7 Nov 2019 First Decision: 18 Feb 2020 Revised: 19 Feb 2020 Accepted: 6 Mar 2020 Published: 30 May 2020
Science Editors: Yi-Lin Cao, Raúl González-García Copy Editor: Jing-Wen Zhang Production Editor: Tian Zhang

Abstract
Stem cells and tissue engineering have made great strides in plastic surgery. This review of the literature evaluates
some current background information and recent advances in our laboratory to bring these areas more into the
clinical setting.

Keywords: Stem cells, plastic surgery, fat

INTRODUCTION
Plastic surgeons are innovative. The specialty has been founded on cutting technology, new ways to look
at procedures and adaptive behavior. Plastic surgeons have embraced the field of regenerative medicine
and have attempted to understand stem cell technology and fat grafting and how this might relate and
[1-5]
apply to the clinical setting . Unfortunately despite much progress, there remains significant unanswered
questions on clinical applicability and our ability to regulate and adjust these cells for clinical use.

Embryonic stem cells were first isolated and described by Dr. James Thomson at the University of
Wisconsin in 1998 [5-13] . The pluripotent nature of these cells generated a great deal of excitement but with
this excitement came concerns on potential embryonic sacrifice along with the potential experimental
concern with the use of these cells. Consequently, the use of embryonic stems cells has been isolated to a
few discrete clinical trials [14-20] .

Induced pluripotent cells (iPS cells) are genetically modified cells that take on the characteristic of
embryonic stem cells. The initial excitement over the use of these cells revolved around the opportunity

© The Author(s) 2020. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, for any purpose, even commercially, as long
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