"Mass Transfer Regulation of Blood Clot Growth and Stability"

Keith Neeves, PhD
Associate Professor
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Colorado School of Mines
Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado, Denver

The formation of a clot is an exquisitely regulated biological process in which a complex
fluid, blood, undergoes a rapid transformation into a densely packed porous medium at
the site of a vascular injury. In this talk Keith Neeves will review the biophysical mechanisms that regulate the formation of a blood clot, with a focus on mass transfer limitations of platelet
agonists and inhibitors, coagulation and fibrin formation. Measurements made in
microfluidic models of vascular injury reveal that these mass transfer limitation have
important implications in the pathophysiology of bleeding and thrombotic disorders.