PITTSBURGH — University of Pittsburgh researchers have grown arteries that exhibit the elasticity of natural blood vessels at the highest levels reported, a development that could overcome a major barrier to creating living-tissue replacements…
Durham, NC (November 2010) – Researchers in the United States have developed a medical model for regenerating bladders using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own bone marrow. The research, published in Stem Cells, is especially relevant for pae…
Researchers in the United States have developed a medical model for regenerating bladders using stem cells harvested from a patient’s own bone marrow. The research, published in STEM CELLS, is especially relevant for paediatric patients suffering fro…
Many studies support the assertion that moderate drinking is beneficial when it comes to cardiovascular health, and for the first time scientists have discovered that a well-known molecule, called Notch, may be behind alcohol’s protective effects. D…
HOUSTON — (Nov. 18, 2010) — Discovery of a fifth gene defect and the identification of 47 DNA regions linked to thoracic aortic disease are the subject of studies released this month involving researchers at The University of Texas Health Scienc…
Taste receptors in the lungs? Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore have discovered that bitter taste receptors are not just located in the mouth but also in human lungs. What they learned about the role of …
In a combination of bioengineering and cancer research, a team of Duke University Medical Center researchers has made the first arteries from non-embryonic tissues in the laboratory, an important step toward growing human arteries outside of the body for use in coronary artery bypass surgery.
Using the same technology that creates tiny, precisely organized computer chips, a research team has developed beds of thousands of independently moveable silicone “microneedles” to reveal the force exerted by smooth muscle cells. Each needle tip in the gadget, whose development and testing is reported this week in the advance online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, can be painted with proteins cells tend to grab onto. By measuring how far a contracting muscle cell moves each needle, the scientists can calculate the force generated by the cell.
Traditional heart bypass surgeries require using veins from the leg to replace damaged blood vessels. Using a nanotechnology developed by Virginia Commonwealth University researchers, doctors soon could be using artificial blood vessels grown in a laboratory to help save half a million lives every year. The new technology produces a natural human blood vessel grown around a scaffold, or tube, made of collagen. Using a process called electrospinning, VCU scientists are making tubes as small as one millimeter in diameter. That’s more than four times smaller than the width of a drinking straw and six times smaller than the smallest commercially available vascular graft.