1.1   This guide covers general guidelines for the pre-clinical in vivo assessment of tissue-engineered medical products (TEMPs) intended to repair or regenerate bone in an interbody and/or posterolateral spinal environment. TEMPs included in this guide may be composed of, but are not limited to, natural or synthetic biomaterials or composites thereof, and may contain cells or biologically active agents such as growth factors, synthetic peptides, plasmids, or cDNA. The models described in this document represent a stringent test of a material’s ability to induce and/or augment bone growth in the spinal environment.