Fat Engineered into Blood Vessels

Liposuction can provide the raw materials for growing new small-diameter blood vessels in the lab, reports a team from the University of Oklahoma (Oklahoma, USA),  Matthias Nollert extracted adult stem cells extracted from patients’ own fat tissue, then cultured them into sheets, and rolled them into tiny vessels: these engineered blood vessels performed as well as natural ones on elastic contractility, but  still need some work to withstand as much pressure as a native vessel can take without bursting.  If the proof-of-concept results with the liposuction-derived stem cells are durable in vivo, it could be an easier route to engineered vessels than the painful bone-marrow procedure for the typically older, sicker heart disease population.