Builders and Blocks: Engineering Blood Vessels with Stem Cells Jalees Rehman 10027/20683 https://indigo.uic.edu/articles/journal_contribution/Builders_and_Blocks_Engineering_Blood_Vessels_with_Stem_Cells/10981187 Back in 2001, when we first began studying how regenerative cells (stem cells or more mature progenitor cells) enhance blood vessel growth, our group as well as many of our colleagues focused on one specific type of blood vessel: arteries. Arteries are responsible for supplying oxygen to all organs and tissues of the body, and arteries are more likely to develop gradual plaque build-up (atherosclerosis) than veins or networks of smaller blood vessels (capillaries). Once the amount of plaque in an artery reaches a critical threshold, the oxygenation of the supplied tissues and organs becomes compromised. In addition to this build-up of plaque and gradual decline of organ function, arterial plaques can rupture and cause severe sudden damage, such as a heart attack. The conventional approach to treating arterial blockages in the heart was to either perform an open-heart bypass surgery in which blocked arteries were manually bypassed or to place a tube-like “stent” in the blocked artery to restore the oxygen supply. The hope was that injections of regenerative cells would ultimately replace the invasive procedures because the stem cells would convert into blood vessel cells, form healthy new arteries, and naturally bypass the blockages in the existing arteries. 2016-06-06 00:00:00 stem cells Mesenchymal Stem Cells (MSC) angiogenesis Vascular blood vessels tissue engineering