Schematic overview of image analysis for whole blood and platelet rich plasma experiments.

Britt van Rooij, PhD alumnus of UvA supervised by Gábor Závodszky and Alfons Hoekstra, investigated the formation of occlusive thrombi formed under high flow shear rates in microfluidic devices. The results have been published in Nature Scientific Reports . The article is a result of a collaboration with prof. David Ku of Georgia Institute of Technology. In this work, microfluidic devices are used to study the influence of the blood flow on in vitro growth and shrinkage of a clot. Experiments with whole blood and platelet-rich plasma at high shear rates (> 3,000 s-1) were performed in two microfluidic systems with a stenotic section. Both microfluidic systems occluded in the stenotic section. Significant different lag times, occlusion times and RPA rates have been obtained for whole blood and platelet-rich plasma. In addition, platelet aggregates seem to grow in a mountain-and-valley-like shape. For more details, please visit: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-74518-7