Thrombosis and Inflammation
Platelets
Our work is focused on patient benefit, studying platelet function in the context of cardiovascular disease. Our researchers use pharmacological, transgenic and gene-targeted strategies to determine the causality of maladaptive platelet functions in human disease. These are coupled with clinical focused studies assessing platelet function in patients with acute coronary syndromes, heart failure, insulin resistant states and peripheral vascular disease. Our work is focused on deep phenotyping of blood platelets in these disease states, through the use of multiple biochemical and functional analyses as a step towards a precision medicine approach to treatment of platelet dysfunction.
Key researchers –
Dr Cedric Duval
Professor Khalid Naseem
Dr Amanda Unsworth
Coagulation
We study all aspects of blood clot formation and breakdown to discover why people with cardio metabolic disease are at higher risk of thrombosis. We are interested in both arterial and venous thrombosis, including deranged clot formation and impaired breakdown, as well as abnormal clot fragmentation that can cause thromboembolism. In addition to uncovering new therapeutic targets, our research uses state-of-the-art technologies to manipulate key proteins that increase the risk of thrombotic, embolic and bleeding events, the latter being a frequent complication of anti-thrombotic therapies. Supported by British Heart Foundation, Wellcome Trust and the UKRI grants, our research investigates clot structure, fibrin polymer biophysical properties, thromboinflammation and tissue repair. This approach allows for improved risk stratification and development of safer therapeutics for individuals at high risk of thrombotic, embolic and/or bleeding events.
Key researchers –
Professor Ramzi Ajjan
Professor Robert Ariens
Dr Timea Feller
Professor Helen Philippou
Dr Fraser Macrae
Inflammatory disease
Cardiovascular inflammation attacks healthy blood vessels, resulting in a number of different vasculitis type conditions. Accurate diagnosis of vasculitis is key to successful treatment outcomes for vasculitis patients, particularly for conditions such as Giant Cell Arteritis, which holds serious risk of permanent sight loss if not treated promptly. Our research is focused in two areas. The first is discovery of biomarkers that discriminate one type of vasculitis from the others. The second is the role of autoantibodies and their receptors in inflammation, thrombosis and drug response, and their blockade as potential novel therapies.
Key researchers –
Professor Ann Morgan
Dr Jim Robinson