Project overview
Platelets are key drivers of thrombosis with a hyper-reactive phenotype leading to heart attacks and strokes. Thrombosis risk is associated with inflammation and is a central feature of a broad range of diseases, such as vascular dementia, diabetes, cancer, stroke, arthritis and infections. Platelet reactivity describes both sensitivity AND speed of response, a critical determinant for understanding platelets in flow. With platelets being functionally heterogeneous, does inflammation promote excessive hyper-reactivity among some platelets to cause thrombosis? Platelets are uniquely small enabling extremely fast, millisecond-scale signaling and activation. Identifying these fast responding, hyper-reactive platelets requires new technologies. To address this technology gap, the research will develop a new microfluidics platform enabling, for the first time, single platelet response times to be measured. The technology will be used to investigate how reaction speed is altered in the context of inflammation. The technology for temporally-resolved single platelet analysis will deliver a new dimension to our understanding of platelet biology and potentially allow time to react variability to be used as a prognostic marker for thrombosis risk.