Figure 5: Applications for Nanotechnology in Tissue Engineering. Nanotechnology has been the subject of recent research for integration into tissue engineering constructs due to its ability to mimic the native ECM and cellular environment. Strategies employed include nanolithography, nanowires, nanofibers, nanoparticles, surface coating, and drug delivery across a variety of tissue engineering fields [187]. Nanolithography has been applied to modify the surface geometry of tissue scaffolds to promote, deter, or control cell and protein interactions to the desired environment [189,191]. Nanofibers can be used to closely mimic the small scale of ECM fibers throughout the cell and its native environment, thereby closely mimicking the surrounding environment and promoting cell integration [192,193]. Additionally, chemical modifications can be made to the scaffold to either coat the surface to control biological interactions, or to load scaffolds with drugs or growth factors to promote integration [195,196].