DALLAS, Nov. 15 - Two kidney dialysis patients from Argentina have received the world's first blood vessels grown in a laboratory dish from snippets of their own skin, a technique that doctors hope will someday offer a new source of arteries and veins for diabetics and other patients.

Scientists from Cytograft Tissue Engineering Inc., a small biotechnology company in Novato, Calif., reported the tissue-engineering advance on Tuesday at the annual conference of the American Heart Association here.

Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, which has spent $2.5 million to finance the company's work, called the new method "extraordinarily promising."

Because it uses the patient's own tissue, the technique steers clears of the political and ethical debate surrounding embryonic stem cells.