Fresh hope for heart disease patients

Scientists have grown new blood vessels from human cells in a worldfirst breakthrough for heart disease treatment.

Adult cells have been transformed in the laboratory into arteries that could be used in cardiac bypasses and other surgery.

Doctors say the 'bioengineered' arteries will be routinely implanted in patients with heart disease within ten years.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina created the arteries by adding the hTERT gene to 'smooth muscle cells' - which make up the walls of the artery.

The aim is to grow arteries from adult cells taken from the patients who will receive them, ensuring a perfect match.

Heart disease claims 140,000 lives a year in the UK. About 100,000 Britons survive a heart attack each year and some 24,000 have bypass surgery.

The breakthrough is published in EMBO Reports, journal of the European Molecular Biology Organization.

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