Nanostructures that mimic VEGF as a strategy for ischemic tissue repair

This article was from the latest issue of PNAS that discusses a new strategy for ischemic tissue repair. Nanofibers with a mimetic active site of the protein VEGF self-assemble after the addition of customizable peptide molecules. These nanofibers were shown to be effective at tissue repair, with more than twice the increase in blood vessel density than VEGF. What was interesting to me in this article was that synthetic customizable molecules could mimic a natural protein so well. Not only did this decrease the cost of treatment, but decreased the frequency of injections. With high costs of medical treatments, this strategy seems like a step forward in the right direction.