Swedish doctors have replaced a major blood vessel in the body of a 10-year-old girl with one grown with her own stem cells, James Gallagher of BBC News reports.
A study published in The Lancet described how the vein was taken from a dead man, stripped of its own cells and then bathed in stem cells from the girl.
The girl previously had poor blood flow between her intestines and liver.
The surgeons told BBC that there was a "striking improvement in her quality of life" in addition to the fact that the girl was "spared the trauma of having veins harvested from the deep neck or leg with the associated risk of lower limb disorders."
They also said that the procedure needed "to be converted into full clinical trials... if regenerative medicine solutions are to become widely used."
This is the latest in a series of body parts grown from stem cells to match the tissue of a patient.
Last year scientists performed the first synthetic windpipe transplant when they created a synthetic windpipe and then coated it with a patient 's stem cells.
Last week Japanese researchers reportedly created a functioning human liver with stem cells.
Yesterday the Daily Mail reported that scientists used stem cells to form part of the retina called the optic cup, which is a major step toward restoring vision for blind people with the help of stem cells.