More on Engineering Blood Vessels
Building blood vessels is a very important part of tissue engineering - without the right shape, size and distribution of blood vessels, scientists cannot build large tissue masses, such as complete organs. As this article from ScienceDaily illustrates, researchers are past the "doing it" stage, and well into the "doing it faster, better, cheaper" stage. This sort of technology opens the door to the development of widely available replacement organs grown to order from the patient's own cells. These early tissue engineering technologies will enable us to effectively replace body parts damaged by degenerative conditions of aging.
Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/01/040114075322.htm