This approach has the advantage that the tissue has a functioning system of blood vessels to deliver nutrients, so it should be possible to grow tissue cultures more than a millimetre thick the current limit.
Could patients have themselves cloned in order to harvest cells from a genetically-identical embryo, gaining a donor and avoiding the major problem of transplant surgery: rejection of foreign tissue by the immune system?
"This is a stem cell that is generated by the body's own tissue so the immune system does not recognise it and they can get any place they want without being attacked, " said Prof Rambukkana.