Good News For Diabetes Patients: Human Blood Vessel Can Now Be Grown In Labs

Scientists have found a new way to tackle diabetes. However, this time, it is not a new drug or treatment. In fact, the invention in question is an artificial blood vessel system that bears a striking resemblance to the real one in our bodies.

What sets this system apart is the fact that it was created in a lab and has already been a promising method to treat diabetes.

To understand the value of this creation, let’s take a look at how diabetes can affect our health. Diabetes patients usually suffer from an increase in the thickness of blood vessels, which can have a negative impact on the number of oxygen organisms receive. Some of the problems are blindness, heart attacks, strokes, and kidney failure.

The scientists behind this breakthrough are from the University of British Columbia, and in a study on Nature, the technique they used to create this invention was detailed. The team found a way to grow stem cells into the blood vessel called "organoids." The researchers then created a manmade diabetic environment and placed the vessel in.

According to Reiner Wimmer, one of the team’s scientists, its thickness increased in the same way a real one would inside the body of a diabetes patient. This system is an ideal sample for scientists to study and find a way to treat diabetic vasculopathy.

With a sample at hand, they started experimenting for a compound that can stop this thickening. What they found is an enzyme γ-secretase’s inhibitor.

The inhibitor is a potential treatment for diabetes, but the lab-grown system has more practical applications than this, said Josef Penninger, another researcher in the team.

He said that the ability to grow blood vessel in labs is a breakthrough in treating a wide range of vascular diseases like stroke, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and Alzheimer as all organisms in human’s body is linked by the blood vessels.