Although each site may not rival a business in Dallas or Houston, a chain of smaller successes could add up to big bucks. There could be a corresponding loss of identity for businesses in small Texas towns as local establishments are taken over by outside investors. However, towns may welcome the change if it brings prosperity. In Germany, doctors have developed a drug that appears to create new blood vessels when injected into the human body. Just days after injection, the flow of blood to the heart is increased.
Experts hope that with more research, the drug can be used to grow blood vessels.
Currently, the drug is used only in conjunction with bypass surgery. It is not known how much of the vessel growth is due to surgery or to F.G.F. 1. Development of a drug or technique that grows blood vessels without bypass surgery is especially critical, since many patients have arteries that are too narrow for surgery. In Boston and New York, doctors are testing different methods for growing blood vessels in diseased hearts, each using a form of gene therapy. Medical researchers have been searching for a way to grow blood vessels since the 1920s.