Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and nanoparticle technology, researchers from Yale have devised a way to monitor the growth of laboratory-engineered blood vessels after they have been implanted in patients. This advance represents an important step toward ensuring that blood vessels, and possibly other tissues engineered from a patient’s own biological material, are taking hold and working as expected. Until now, there has been no way to monitor the growth and progress of engineered tissues once they were implanted. This research was published in the December 2011 issue of the FASEB Journal.
