Blood vessels on a chip

摘要

The establishment of blood-vessel networks is a matter of life and death for tissues and organisms. Failure to form a functional vascular network causes early death of embryos, and dysfunction of endothelial cells (which line the inside of blood vessels) contributes to many diseases, including stroke, thrombosis and atherosclerosis. Therefore, substantial resources are being directed towards research into the cellular, molecular and physical factors that regulate the formation, stability and functional responses of the vasculature.