A new technique for creating artificial blood vessels outside the body using a patient's own stem cells has offered hope for people with heart disease.

One in four men and one in six women in the UK will die from heart disease and around 300,000 people a year suffer a heart attack. The disease is caused by a build-up of fatty deposits in blood vessels supplying the heart muscle with blood. If these are blocked completely the heart is starved of oxygen and stops.

Heart bypass surgery involves taking a length of artery from elsewhere in the body - usually the chest or leg - and using it to replace the furred-up heart artery.

Now researchers at the University of Buffalo have tried using stem cells from bone marrow to generate new blood vessels from scratch outside the body.

The blood vessels were tested by transplanting them into the jugular veins of three eight-week-old lambs.

They performed well for five weeks and when removed a series of analyses suggested they were operating as normal blood vessels. The vessels are not yet strong enough for use in heart bypass operations.