Researchers Grow World's First 'Perfect Human' Blood Vessels

A breakthrough in bioengineering, human blood vessels can now be grown in a lab, a scientific report revealed Wednesday, potentially opening up new avenues for treatment of common vascular diseases.

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“Being able to build human blood vessels as organoids from stem cells is a game changer,” said senior researcher and co-author, Josef Penninger.

Using the ever-adaptable stem cells, researchers from the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the University of British Columbia created three-dimensional organoids to mimic human blood vessels, a study published in the journal Nature said.

Author and research fellow, Reiner Wimmer, said, “Our organoids resemble human capillaries to a great extent, even on a molecular level, and we can now use them to study blood vessel diseases directly on human tissue.”

Penninger who directs the university’s Life Sciences Institute and the Institute for Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA), said, “Every single organ in our body is linked with the circulatory system. This could potentially allow researchers to unravel the causes and treatments for a variety of vascular diseases, from Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular diseases, wound healing problems, stroke, cancer and, of course, diabetes.”

During their studies, scientists also discovered a potential means to treat basement membrane in diabetes patients.

Most diabetics develop a syndrome which causes their blood vessels to thicken abnormally, also known as “basement membrane.” This slows the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the tissues and cells and consequently cause a number of health issues such as strokes, heart attacks, blindness, kidney failure, and peripheral artery disease.

While testing on rodents, scientists introduced blood vessel organoids to a “diabetic environment” to gauge its effectiveness.

“Surprisingly, we could observe a massive expansion of the basement membrane in the vascular organoids. This typical thickening of the basement membrane is strikingly similar to the vascular damage seen in diabetic patients,” said Wimmer.

Current anti-diabetic medications had little to no effect on the membrane. However, the team of researchers discovered that an enzyme inhibitor of y-secretase did prevent thickening in the cell wall. Their findings could assist in identifying the underlying causes of vascular disease.