Question: How do you grow the blood vessels? What equipment do you use?

Tim Millar answered on 17 Jun 2011:

Well, first of all you need to collect all the bits you need. I take real blood vessels from umbilical cords and placentas and take all the blood vessels out. Each one is made up of three layers: the inside is the “endothelium”, around this is the basement membrane and around that is the smooth muscle. I take a gel like substance and and make a tube into which I add the endothelial cells. tehn I layer on the smooth muscke cells on the outside. This is all then set into a gel block and placed at body temperature in an incubator.

I attach tubes to each end of my blood vessel and flow nutrients like blood along the tube to feed all the cells. After a couple of days I use these vessels in experiments by flowing cancer cells inside the tube and watching them stick to the endothelium using a microscope.

I then do the same thing but add different drugs to see if I can stop the cancer cells from sticking. Its a simple experiment but is very useful in my research.