Blood loss is a major cause of death from roadside bombs to freeway crashes. Traumatic injury, the leading cause of death for people age 4 to 44, often overwhelms the body's natural blood-clotting process. In an effort to enhance the natural process, a team led by Erin Lavik, a new Case Western Reserve University biomedical engineering professor, and her former doctoral student, James P. Bertram, built synthetic platelets that show promise in halting internal and external bleeding. Their work is published in Science Translational Medicine. The researchers were inspired by studies showing there are few options to treat soldiers suffering...