Scientists Grow Blood Vessels Using Skin Cells

rubberbando writes "The new york times is running a story about how scientists have discovered a way to grow new blood vessels using skin cells. Since the blood vessels are grown using the patient's own skin cells, there isn't any chance for rejection. This looks to be quite a boon for people who have several damaged blood vessels from diseases such as diabetes. Perhaps one day they will be able to apply this technology/technique to creating other parts of the body and rid us of the whole stem cell controversy. Only time will tell."

Comments

hmm.. interesting...

[way2trivial]

there are surgeons who specialize (at least partly) in bloodless surgeries, as some folks have religious beliefs that deny them blood donated from others...

wonder how this tech gets interpreted by the religious leaders... permissible or no....

Re:Hope At Last

[segment]

lynx -dump "http://tinyurl.com/bsu7d" |sed -n '106p' |sed 's/est/ its/g;s/z/s/'|awk '{print $5,$7,$4}'

Re:Meat factories

[QuantumG]

Personally I would love it if protein synthesis became plausible in my lifetime. First you'd sell these factories to third world countries where defending a corporate asset is a lot easier than defending farmland. Instantly curing world hunger. Then you'd see 100% synthesised meat alternatives appearing in vegetarian food outlets - there's already some of this, Quorn being the most famous, but their manufacturing methods are too expensive to have an effect on the mainstream. Then we'll see synthesised meat appearing in shopping centre refrigeration cabinets. When you have the choice between $21.99/kg steak vs $1.99/kg synthesised meat you'll at least give it a go. From there, the future is our playground. We can shut down factory farms. We can reclaim land for foresting. We can build self sufficient space habitates without needing to launch millions of tonnes of topsoil for crops.