Key points from article :
Blood vessels created in the lab can successfully turn into living tissue.
Could offer new treatment options for patients with damaged blood vessels.
Dialysis patients have a vein and artery joined together so can connect to dialysis machine.
Some patients' veins are not strong enough so use a synthetic implant.
But implants carry a greater risk of blood clots and infections.
Researchers grew a matrix in a bioreactor using smooth muscle cells from deceased human donors.
Patients' own cells and tiny blood vessels migrate to the engineered vessels.
Plan is to create large numbers of off-the-shelf engineered blood vessels.
Study by Humacyte published in Science Translational Medicine.
