Artificial blood vessels 'closer'
It is hoped the technology could be used to make blood vessels
Scientists are a step nearer the creation of tiny artificial blood
vessels after growing miniscule tubes out of stem cells in the
laboratory.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology team got the cells to
stretch and form tubes along a grooved template, Advanced Materials
reports.
Now they plan to produce capillaries which could be tested in
animals.
One UK researcher said that lab-grown blood vessels was one of
the "holy grails" of regenerative medicine.
Researchers have already managed to make wider blood vessels from
scratch, but the formation of the tiny diameter capillaries needed to
create a blood supply within other tissues and organs is far more
challenging.
The US scientists claim to have made progress towards this, using
a "nanoscale" template into which stem cells called endothelial
progenitor cells are placed.
The cells detected the grooves and elongated themselves along them,
aligning themselves in the same direction.
Adding a gel made of growth factors allowed the cells to grow
outwards, forming a series of tiny tubes running parallel to each
other.
While these tubes are not yet ready to be put inside a human body,
the researchers say they are "very excited" by their potential.
Animal tests
Professor Robert Langer, who led the research, said: "It provides a
new way to create nano-based systems which we hope will provide a
novel way to some day engineer tissues in the human body."
The team now plan to develop capillary tubes which can be inserted
into animals to see if they work properly.
Professor Julian Chaudhuri, a researcher in tissue engineering at
Bath University, said that the inability to create working small
blood vessels in the laboratory was one of the major obstacles to
efforts to create replacement organs outside the body.
He said: "This is an exciting paper. The creation of blood vessels is
one of the holy grails of regenerative medicine.
"A lot of people are working on this. It's not going to happen
overnight, but this is another step towards it."
He added that, aside from the hope of creating replacement tissues
and organs for patients, the work could help scientists understand
how to tackle unwanted blood vessel growth, such as that found in
tumours.
http://news.
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StemCells subscribers may also be interested in these sites:
Children's Neurobiological Solutions
http://www.CNSfoundation.org/
Cord Blood Registry
http://www.CordBlood.com/at.cgi?a=150123
The CNS Healing Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CNS_Healing
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