Doctors may one day be able to use stem cells taken from umbilical cord blood to buildnew heart valves for children born with heart defects, German scientists said on Monday.
These valves could grow as a child develops, doing away with any need for repeated operations to replace outgrown artificial valves or valves made from animal or human donor tissue, said Ralf Sodian of University Hospital Munich, who led the study.
"The basic idea is to implant something living, functional from your own cells which will integrate into the surrounding tissue with the potential to grow."
Stem cells are the body's master cells and there are several kinds.
