Vascularized Mini-Organs: Lab-Grown Heart & Liver with Blood Vessels

Published 2025-10-08

Stanford researchers have successfully engineered heart and liver organoids that include their own internal vasculature, a milestone in organoid technology that brings us closer to transplantable tissues. The heart organoid, cultured for two weeks, contains cardiomyocytes and smooth muscle cells enveloped by endothelial cells that self-assemble into blood-vessel networks, allowing nutrient flow and more physiologically realistic growth. This advance addresses a major bottleneck in regenerative medicine: creating thicker, metabolically supported tissues rather than thin cell sheets. The development lays a foundation for future generation of more complex, vascularized organs for transplantation, disease modeling, and drug testing.