Birth rates are dropping while life expectancy is rising dramatically in industrial nations. Combined ith people’s increasing health awareness, that spells out rapidly ageing populations1, confronting the industrial nations with a constant need for medical and biotechnological materials. 

This trend runs up against the social necessity of driving down health care costs. Challenges revolve around fighting the wide-spread diseases of the 21st century that either restrict people’s quality of life or even threaten its very existence. They include: 

• heart and cardiovascular diseases
• cancer
• diabetes
• organic lesions / replacing organs
• osteoporosis / bone substitutes
• wear to joints and cartilage
• diseases of the nervous system