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Heart Bypass Arteries: Laboratory-Grown
How to make an artery?
The new technology produces a natural human blood vessel grown around a tubular scaffold made of collagen. Using a process called "electrospinning," Gary Bowlin and others at VCU are making tubes as small as one millimeter in diameter. After the scaffold is prepared, smooth muscle cells are seeded onto the scaffold's surface where the cells begin grow. In as little as three weeks the tissue-engineered blood vessel is ready.
Collagen is a natural component of the human body, unlike synthetic plastic blood vessels, so the cells grow well on its surface and avoid rejection. The cells find themselves in an environment where they receive the chemical "GO" signals to start them developing into blood vessels. After receiving the transplanted artery, the body eventually replaces the biodegradable collagen scaffold.
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