Blood banks have been vital in medical care since the early 1900s, and now a team of scientists at the Morgridge Institute for Research in Madison, Wisconsin, wants to take the concept a step further.
Category: Regenerative Biology
Stem cell scientists clear another hurdle in creating transplant arteries
Scientists at the Morgridge Institute are working toward a dream of creating artery banks with readily-available material to replace diseased arteries during surgery. Recent work highlights highlights a better way to grow smooth muscle cells, putting the science one step closer to that goal.
Stem cells: Where are we going?
Together with the University of Wisconsin–Madison, we look back on 20 years of stem cell research and see where we’re going next. Catch up on what’s happened since James Thomson’s prescient prediction that stem cells “will change medicine, period.”
Collaboration leads to ‘dream’ of artery bank
Just as blood banks are essential to medicine, the Thomson Lab hopes to see the advent of artery banks that give surgeons a better, readily available material to replace diseased arteries. The lab is using pluripotent stem cells to grow the cellular building blocks of the artery — endothelial and smooth muscle cells — and coax them into assembling into arteries that can grow and thrive in a majority of patients.
Out of left field: Thomson looks at discovery and the future of science
James Thomson, the UW–Madison biologist whose stem cell discovery 20 years ago opened fascinating and promising new avenues in science, took time to discuss his thoughts on the breakthrough and what the future holds for the field of regenerative medicine.