Quantifying Tension and Exploring its Role in Determining Blood Clot Fate

Nathan Hudson, PhD
East Carolina University

Abstract: Heart attack, ischemic stroke, and venous thromboembolism are leading causes of death and disability worldwide and often result from aberrant blood clotting. Fibrin is a hierarchical biomaterial that forms the structural backbone of blood clots during the hemostatic process. Clots form at the site of injuries when individual fibrin molecules polymerize into linear strands called fibers which then branch into a 3-D gel at sites of injuries. These fibrin networks trap red blood cells and other vascular constituents during the wound healing process. After the completion of wound healing, fibrin is degraded by the enzyme plasmin, in a process called fibrinolysis. This talk will discuss the role of inherent fiber tension, which emerges from blood clot polymerization and regulates in fibrinolytic processes. Tension in individual fibers peals back the internal fiber structure during digestion, likely accelerating the process. At the gel scale, cleavage of individual fibers results in a redistribution of the tension, leading to fiber rearrangements, bundling, buckling, and collapsing. Comparing these results with simulations, shows that networks without tension require all fibers to be cleaved before the network is cleared, while real networks can be fully cleared with only ~ 50% of fibers cleaved.

Biography: Nathan grew up in Northeast Ohio and attended Kent State University as an undergraduate student majoring in physics with a minor in biology. He received his PhD in physics from UNC-Chapel Hill, with a concentration in molecular and cellular biophysics and did a postdoc in immunology and biophysics at Harvard Medical School. Since 2016 he has been a faculty member in the Physics Department at East Carolina University. During his career, his work on the mechanics of blood clots has resulted in numerous publications and recognitions, and he currently is a member of the board of councilors for the International Fibrinogen Research Society. Nathan is happily married to his wife Robin, and they have four kids, which makes life fun but often sleep-deprived. In his free time, he enjoys adventures with his family, watching sports, strategy board games, reading books, and coaching a Lego robotics team.