Scientists have been growing miniature versions of organs, such as livers and lungs, in labs for some time. But creating blood vessels to nourish and sustain those lab-grown tissues has been harder.
Engineered vessels often have resulted in tissue rejection or they simply failed to work for sustained periods of time.
Now scientists at China’s Southern University of Science and Technology and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a better blood vessel.
Using a stretchy, printable biodegradable polymer that contains a liquid metallic electrical conductor, the researchers created a tube less than a quarter-inch in diameter (less than 6 mm). When they applied an electric current through the conductor, a scattering inside the tube of the three kinds of cells that line blood vessels began to multiply. The current also helped the cells self-organize into the three layers of cells inside an artery or vein.
Tested in rabbits, the electronic blood vessel was as flexible and free-flowing as nature’s own and didn’t clog or degrade over time.
TRENDPOST: The new technique gives bioscientists another tool with which to eventually build replacement organs, using a patient’s own stem cells, when original equipment fails. In the future, the vessels also will be used to replace clogged or damaged blood vessels in persons with cardiovascular disease.
