Stem cell study offers hope for heart woes

PAUL RECER THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Cells extracted from a human embryo have been nurtured into tiny blood vessels, a key step toward someday using embryonic stem cells to aid ailing hearts or fix blocked arteries, researchers say.

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that human embryonic stem cells can be coaxed to spontaneously form blood vessels and organize themselves so they could nourish tissue in the body, said Robert Langer, leader of a laboratory team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Langer said that if the technique is refined, scientists might eventually be able to make in the laboratory blood vessels that could replace diseased arteries.

"There are thousands of operations a year now where doctors take vessels from one part of the body and transplant them to another," Langer said. Eventually, he said, such vessels might be made outside the body.

The work is reported in today's online issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Controversial issue

The use of embryonic stem cells is controversial because extracting the cells kills a human embryo. President Bush last summer decided that federal funding would be permitted only for stem cell cultures that then existed and which were made from embryos that were to be discarded by fertility clinics. The aim was to prevent further killing for research purposes of other human embryos.

Langer said his lab will seek federal funding to continue research using the same stem cell cultures.

Embryonic stem cells are the ancestral cells of every cell in the body. In a developing embryo, they transform into cells that make up organs, bone, skin and other tissues. Researchers hope to direct the transformation of such cells to treat ailing hearts, livers, brains and other organs.

On the Web

- Proceedings on the National Academy of Sciences: www.pnas.org

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