March 30, 2004
Stem Cells Used to Grow Blood Vessels
A Japanese research team has become the first in the world to grow structurally complete capillary blood vessels from human embryonic stem cells, The Yomiuri Shimbun learned Monday.Posted by Bob King at March 30, 2004 03:32 PM | TrackBackThe team, led by Prof. Kazuwa Nakao of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Medicine, used capillary precursor cells generated from stem cells imported from Australia in 2002 to grow capillaries in a test tube earlier this year.
Unlike other cells, embryonic stem cells have the capacity to develop into any other kind of cell, such as cells that make up entire organs, and the latest announcement signals that stem cell research has entered a new stage.
Researchers had until now only managed to regenerate nerve cells and muscle tissue, which are not sufficient to produce entire organs.Nakao's team's specific achievement has been the creation of capillaries that consist of stratified endothelial cells, which form capillaries' inner surfaces, and smooth muscle cells, which form their outer surfaces.
This is an advance on results obtained in 2002 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., who managed to form structures that resembled capillaries in terms of their shape, and that, like capillaries, also channeled blood, but differed from capillaries in terms of their cell structure, by injecting stem cells into a mouse.
Related Categories: Industry - Healthcare | Industry - Pharmaceutical/Biotech | Quadrant - Technological | Theme - 'The Biotech Century'
The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate: Science, Ethics, and Public Policy (Basic Bioethics)The MIT Press
Amazon Price: $15.75
God and the Embryo: Religious Voices on Stem Cells and CloningGeorgetown University Press
Amazon Price: $17.79
The Stem Cell Controversy: Debating the Issues (Contemporary Issues (Prometheus))Prometheus Books
Amazon Price: $14.28
Stem Cells and The Future Of Regenerative MedicineNational Academy Press
Amazon Price: $19.95
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