Damaged bones and cartilage can impact the quality of life. Bone possesses the intrinsic regenerative property as a part of the skeletal development and remodeling process throughout adult life. However, the regenerative property of bone is reportedly impaired in various skeletal degenerative disorders, malignancies, and large bone defects. The cartilage, on the other hand, has extremely limited self-renewal properties, partly due to its non-vascular nature. Tissue engineering of bone and cartilage requires the newly restored tissue to integrate with the host tissue. Most importantly, it should be equally functional as the native tissue. Presently, many strategies addressing the augmentation of impaired bone and cartilage are being developed using growth factors, osteoconductive scaffolds, and stem cells.

In this Methods Collection, we plan to include methods that could aid the development of novel bone and cartilage engineering strategies. The approaches to the strategy development may include any combination, including stem cell therapy, exosomes, secreted microvesicles, growth factors, drug delivery, smart biomaterials, nanoparticles, and gene therapy, specifically for bone or cartilage regeneration. This Methods Collection will be an interesting resource for researchers working in the field of bone and cartilage tissue engineering.