CLOT BUSTING - ADVANCED RHEOMETRY FOR INFORMING THE DEVELOPMENT OF FUTURE THROMBOLYTIC THERAPIES

Thrombosis (i.e blood clotting) is a leading cause of mortality globally and includes diseases such as stroke, heart attack and deep vein thrombosis. Stroke is the third leading cause of death and a major cause of adult disability in the UK. Current therapies ("clot busting" drugs) for blood clots in stroke can lead to bleeding complications and are often ineffective; in up to 25 % of patients the treatment is unable to break down the clot.

Due to the lack of effective biomarkers of clotting and clot breakdown that accurately reflect clinical outcome, clinical practice is that interventional decisions are made on patients admitted to hospital with stroke with no knowledge of their clotting status. There is an urgent need for new and improved biomarkers. Such biomarkers will underpin the development of more effective therapeutic strategies and accelerate their clinical translation.

The proposed work aims to develop new functional biomarkers of clot breakdown by exploiting recent advances in rheometry (superposition rheometry and Gaborheometry). We propose to develop a technique which provides clot formation and breakdown parameters, in the same test, on the same sample. In a pre-clinical study, we aim to establish that our rheological biomarkers reflect whole blood responses to both prophylactic and thrombolytic therapies utilising blood from (i) healthy volunteers and (ii) stroke patients, the latter under our collaboration with the NHS based Welsh Centre for Emergency Medicine Research.

An advanced technological platform, which provides biomarkers reflecting clot functionality will greatly benefit the pharmaceutical industry, who will have access to improved and more accurate testing for the development of novel therapies. In turn, clinicians charged with patient care will enjoy more reliable, more efficient therapies thus improving clinical outcome.

This will reduce the burden on healthcare (the NHS in the UK), as patients are likely to spend less time in hospitals. As future therapies emerge, timely and personalised treatment becomes more realistic, but these require accurate diagnostic tests.