Artificial Blood Vessels Grow On Nano-Template

Invisible Pink Unicorn writes "Researchers at MIT have found a way to induce cells to form parallel tube-like structures that could one day lead to tiny engineered blood vessels. The researchers found that they can control the cells' development by growing them on a surface with nano-scale patterning. The work focuses on vascular tissue, which includes capillaries, the tiniest blood vessels. The team has created a surface that can serve as a template to grow capillary tubes aligned in a specific direction. The cells, known as endothelial progenitor cells, not only elongate in the direction of the grooves, but also align themselves along the grooves. That results in a multicellular structure with defined edges — a band structure. Once the band structures form, the researchers apply a commonly used gel that induces cells to form three-dimensional tubes."

Comments

Re:Tube-like structures

[wikinerd]

And the president using his new counter-terrorism law dubbed I.O.W.N.Y.O.U. enacted a ban on any research on the dangerous internets and their evil series of tubes, because as he said they are full of pornography and therefore a danger to the innocent unborn. The vice president later suggested to use all jobless researchers as forced labour for the new human missions to Alpha Centauri, which are of course relying on the space infrastructure of an otherwise very democratic dictatorship run by a former KGBer. People in the free world over the Atlantic scratch their heads and wonder what their WW2 ally is smoking.