Blood in the body’s vascular system sustains life, but when it escapes, it must rapidly form a solid protective barrier — a clot — to prevent fatal outcomes. However, because natural blood clots are notoriously slow to form, severe bleeding resulting from accidents, battlefield injuries and surgical complications causes many potentially preventable deaths. Writing in Nature, Jiang et al.1 report a bioengineering advance that addresses this challenge by fundamentally altering the architecture of blood clots. Not only do the engineered clots form in seconds, they also have a mechanical strength that greatly surpasses that of natural clots and have biological functionality that supports wound healing.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-01150-2
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Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests.
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