Engineered living-cell blood vessel provides new insights to progeria

Scientists have developed the most advanced disease model for blood vessels to date and used it to discover a unique role of the endothelium in Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome. This devastating and extremely rare genetic disease causes symptoms resembling accelerated aging in children. The model is the first to grow both the smooth muscle and inner lining, or endothelium, layers of blood vessels from stem cells derived from the patients' own skin.