Abstract
The challenging task of heart regeneration is being pursued in three related directions: derivation of cardiomyocytes from human stem cells, in vitro engineering and maturation of cardiac tissues, and development of methods for controllable cell delivery into the heart. In this review, we focus on tissue engineering methods that recapitulate biophysical signaling found during normal heart development and maturation. We discuss the use of scaffold-bioreactor systems for engineering functional human cardiac tissues, and the methods for delivering stem cells, cardiomyocytes and engineered tissues into the heart.