Imagine splitting a human hair 100,000 times. Each split is a single nanometer in diameter, the size of a nanostructure. These tiny items are being used by scientists and doctors at Northwestern University to do something big: build new blood vessels. Blood vessels get blocked, often by fatty deposits that narrow them from the inside, and blood cannot flow properly through them. Peripheral arterial disease occurs when these blockages reduce the blood supply to the extremities. The problem, a common one in patients with diabetes, can result in heart attacks when the blockages occur in the vessels feeding blood to the heart.
