A Duke University spinoff has reached a milestone in tissue engineering as it transplanted the first bioengineered blood vessel into the arm of a patient with end-stage kidney disease.
In its first U.S. clinical trial, Humacyte is testing the safety and effectiveness of the blood vessel, which is intended to be an off-the-shelf product that’s derived from human cells but doesn’t have any of the biological properties that cause organ rejection.
People with kidney disease undergo dialysis, which often requires use of a graft to connect an artery to a vein. Current options carry risks of complications, according to Duke, like clotting and infection.
Humacyte creates its vessels by cultivating donated human cells on a tubular scaffold. The resulting vessel is then cleansed of the qualities that might trigger an immune response, leaving a collagen structure that mechanically matches artery and vein it’s being sewn to.
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[Photo credit: Duke University]