Medical research

Challenging our understanding of how platelets are made

Platelets are uniquely mammalian cells, and are the small cells of the blood that are critical for us to stop bleeding when we cut ourselves. They are also a central part of the process of thrombosis, which underlies heart ...

Medical research

Look! Down in the petri dish! It's a superplatelet!

Blood platelets have one main job: Stop bleeding by forming clots. Sometimes, however, these tiny cell fragments fail when they are needed most - when a person is experiencing massive bleeding, usually due to trauma.

Medical research

Computer simulation addresses the problem of blood clotting

Creating an artificial implantable kidney would be an epic advance in medicine and could address a chronic shortage of donor kidneys needed for transplant. Researchers have been at this quest for the past 15 years and keep ...

Medical research

New methods reveal the biomechanics of blood clotting

Platelets are cells in the blood whose job is to stop bleeding by sticking together to form clots and plug up a wound. Now, for the first time, scientists have measured and mapped the key molecular forces on platelets that ...

Immunology

Immune system—the body's street sweepers

A new study by medical researchers at LMU extends the list of tasks performed by the smallest blood cells known as platelets: At sites of infection, actively migrating platelets sweep bacteria into aggregates for disposal ...

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