A new study conducted by US researchers has proved that cells taken from human bone marrow, blood and umbilical cords can grow into functioning blood vessels in mice provided the coaxing is right.
Harvard's Joyce Bischoff, who led the study released on Saturday, said that they had used human cells that can be obtained from blood or bone marrow rather than removing and using fully developed blood vessels.
The team at Harvard Medical School and Children's Hospital Boston announced that they were able to team up the progenitor cells to form working blood vessels that connected to the circulatory systems of the mice.
According to the team, immature cells, known as progenitor cells were grown under special lab conditions before being implanted into mice. The American Heart Association reported that small balls of healthy blood vessels were formed after the implanted cells mixed, grew and differentiated.
The study also concluded that a mixture of cells from adult blood and bone or from umbilical cord blood achieved the best results.
The study is expected to help doctors find a way to make the body replace blocked or damaged blood vessels. This could prove helpful in helping arteries blocked in a heart attack or stroke.
Source Reuters
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