From Reuters: German scientists, in an impressive display of bio-engineering, have made heart valves with a patient’s own cells. An excerpt from this article describes the process:
The scientists started with valves from human cadavers and pigs, and then removed the living cells until only a scaffold of collagen and elastin remained. The scaffold retained the valve’s original shape. They then took endothelial cells, the cells that make up the lining of blood vessels, from a patient’s vein in a leg or forearm and grew them on the scaffolding in the laboratory. The valves have been implanted in 23 patients with an average age of 44, according to data presented at an annual meeting of the American Heart Association. Dohmen said the patient’s own cells form a completely new scaffold after about a year. His patients have been studied for up to three years since receiving the tissue-engineered valves. “The patients are in very good shape,” he said.
