Fat-Fuelled Hearts

Rolls of fat might soon be put to good use in helping patients with coronary artery disease. Over 20,000 people in the UK will have heart bypass surgery this year. Typically the replacement vessels used to bypass a section of the coronary artery come from the patient’s leg, arm or chest. Problems can arise with these small-diameter vessel grafts such as clotting, for example. New research shows that liposuction-derived vessels could be a viable alternative. Adult stem cells extracted during liposuction were used to grow healthy new small-diameter blood vessels in the lab. Stem cells were turned into smooth muscle cells, then ‘seeded’ onto a thin collagen membrane, where they proliferated before being rolled into tubes mimicking small vessels. Within three to four weeks, usable blood vessels had formed. Researchers report the vessels prevent accumulation of blood platelets, which cause arteries to narrow.

Written by Brona McVittie

Brona McVittie

Writer/Consultant

Independent science blogger and musician. Got the whole BPoD show on the road while heading up the public engagement team at the MRC CSC. Loves gardening, cooking and diving. Makes corkbots too.

• American Heart Association Meeting Report: BCVS-12 Abstract 360
• Illustration first published in Comments on corpulency: lineaments of leanness, mems on diet and dietetics (1829)