Engineering blood vessels
One of the major obstacles to growing new organs -- replacement hearts, lungs and kidneys, for example -- is the difficulty researchers face in building blood vessels to keep those tissues alive. A Michigan Engineering researcher has discovered that one common approach to growing blood vessels in tissues actually produces leaky tubes. And he's found a solution: adult stem cells. In this video he explains how these findings could help researchers build more consistently robust blood vessels.
ABOUT THE PROFESSOR: Andrew Putnam (http://www.bme.umich.edu/people/index...) is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering (http://www.bme.umich.edu/) at the University of Michigan College of Engineering (http://www.engin.umich.edu/). Under his direction, the Laboratory of Cell Signaling in Engineered Tissues (http://www.sitemaker.umich.edu/cset/home) conducts both fundamental and applied research in the broad areas of cell and tissue engineering.