Fig. 1.

Bioengineering human microvascular networks. a Schematic depicting the key elements that are common to most approaches in human vascular network bioengineering: (1) human ECs, (2) human perivascular cells and (3) the scaffold. b Number of publications per year pertinent to bioengineering human microvascular networks. Publications were identified from the MEDLINE database using the PubMed search engine and included all papers up to the year 2018. All potentially relevant publications were individually reviewed to confirm suitability. Emphasis was put on identifying studies that definitively used human ECs and that were specifically related to bioengineering vascular networks. A total of 782 publications were pre-identified as potentially relevant, from which 371 were confirmed suitable according to our criteria