The Tangled Web of Blood Clots

A better understanding of the mechanisms of blood clotting could help prevent the condition known as artherosclerosis - a chronic inflamation in the walls of arteries.

The glue that holds blood clots together is really a dense matrix made of a protein called fibrin, coloured orange in this image. Fibrin scaffolds can stretch up to three times their length without breaking, yet they’re porous enough for protein-eating enzymes to snake through the scaffold once a wound has healed.

When stretched, chaotic tangles of fibrin proteins align. As this scaffold stretches further, individual protein chains unfurl and kick out adjacent water molecules, shrinking the total volume of the matrix.

It is hoped that by examining and understanding these unusual properties of fibrin and blood-clotting they can be reversed, controlled and modulated - holding huge promise for the treatment of conditions such as artherosclerosis