The Thomson Lab continued to pioneer new techniques to advance the field, including methods to generate functional arterial cells derived from human pluripotent stem cells—opening the door for bioengineered solutions to combat cardiovascular disease.

In a new study published in Cell Reports Medicine, they built upon that work to create a universal, small diameter, vascular graft using stem cell-derived arterial endothelial cells (AECs) that could advance the field of vascular bypass surgery.

“Although synthetic vascular grafts have been successfully used in clinics for large vessel repair, sources for small-diameter vessels, most commonly used for the coronary bypass surgery, are limited,” says senior co-author Igor Slukvin, UW–Madison professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the WNPRC. “This work is an important step in advancing stem cell technologies for bioengineering vascular grafts for cardiac vessel repair and their clinical translation.”

Currently, the only clinically approved option for small diamete