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Artificial blood vessels can cause your body to regrow the real thing
A blocked blood vessel can be pretty nasty, and the two most common treatments involve wedging it open or transplanting another vessel from elsewhere in your body. Scientists in Vienna think they may have a slightly more elegant solution to the latter, having developed a method of replacing blocked vessels with artificial ones. The clever part here is that the synthetic polymer that the prostheses are made of encourages the body to grow a real vessel in its place. In one trial on a rat, it took less than six months before the artificial material had broken down and been replaced with a brand new blood vessel.
