Engineering approaches for inducing blood vessel formation

•Improved methods and sources for isolating vascular, perivascular and vascular progenitor cells.•Biomaterials designed and modified to promote new blood vessel formation.•Microfluidic systems can recapitulate aspects of microvascular biology.•3D printing technology enables fabrication of 3D vascular networks.

Tissue engineering incorporates wide and multidisciplinary approaches to engineered viable, clinically relevant tissue substitutes for regenerative medicine applications. When engineering substitutes for most functional tissues, the clinical relevance of the engineered tissue relies greatly on the incorporation of a mature and perfusable network of blood vessels within that tissue. The field of vascular tissue engineering is rapidly developing, combining new insights from vascular cell biology together with novel biomaterials engineering approaches and microfabrication techniques. The purpose of this review is to communicate the recent substantial scientific advancements in these fields, with a particular focus on methods which induce neovascular formation in vitro.