Category Archives: Biochemistry

Three juniors selected as Goldwater Scholars – The Source … – Washington University in St. Louis

Three juniors at Washington University in St. Louis John Georgiades, Shelei Pan and Kaung Ken Soe have received the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, a prestigious award that honors students who conduct research in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

John Georgiades, a chemistry major with a concentration in biochemistry in Arts & Sciences, plans to use organic synthesis, biochemistry and structure-based drug design to develop new drug candidates. Georgiades is a research assistant in the lab of Timothy Wencewicz, associate professor of chemistry. In addition, Georgiades is co-director of the Washington University STEM Education Association, vice president of the Washington University Cancer Research Club, an organic chemistry learning assistant and a violinist with the Washington University Symphony Orchestra.

Shelei Pan, who is majoring in biology,on the neuroscience track,and Spanishin Arts & Sciences, plans to research cerebrospinal fluid handling in the developing brain to better understand and develop treatments for pediatric hydrocephalus. Pan is a research assistant in the lab of Jennifer Strahle, MD, an associate professorof neurosurgery, orthopedic surgery and pediatricsat the School of Medicine. Pan publishedresearchthatcharacterized cerebrospinal fluid circulation to specific functional areas of the neonatal brain and spinal cord.Pan alsolaunchedMade to Model, whichdesignsclothes for children with disabilities.

Kaung Ken Soe, a chemistry major, with a concentration in biochemistry, in Arts & Sciences, plans to research the mechanics of protein condensation and to identify better therapeutic targets to prevent neurodegeneration. Soe is a researcher in the lab of Meredith Jackrel, an assistant professor of chemistry. Soe has published and presented his research at multiple national and regional conferences. In addition, Soe is also a MARC uSTARfellow, a general chemistry peer tutor and avolunteer at theSitemanCancer Center.

In all, 413 students were selected from a field of some 5,000 candidates. The award was established by Congress in 1986 to honor the legacy of U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater.

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Three juniors selected as Goldwater Scholars - The Source ... - Washington University in St. Louis

Senior Awarded Fulbright to Germany Susquehanna University – Susquehanna University

April 07, 2023

Grace Tepes 23, a biochemistry and German studies double major, has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright U.S. English Teaching Assistant award from the U.S. Department of State and the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board.

Tepes, of Northampton, Pennsylvania, will spend 10 months in Germany teaching English to students there.

I have enjoyed learning German since eighth grade, and it has led to so many wonderful experiences and opportunities, Tepes said. I wanted to apply to be an English teaching assistant in Germany to try to give German students the same passion for learning a foreign language.

Tepes upcoming Fulbright experience in Germany will be her third time studying in the country. She traveled to Germany as a high school student and returned to spend a semester in Freiburg, a city in the countrys Black Forest, through Susquehannas Global Opportunities study-abroad program.

During my semester abroad, I took courses in German history, literature, film and grammar, as well as in environmental policies and green business, Tepes said. Studying in Freiburg was a wonderful experience. The beauty of the landscape appeals to me and I enjoy being able to use my knowledge of the German language. I also have ancestral roots in Germany and Austria.

After completing her Fulbright experience, Tepes plans to pursue a career in laboratory work to capitalize on her biochemistry major.

There are many German chemical and medical companies that have locations in the United States. I hope that with the Fulbright, I will learn more about the work culture in Germany, which would be beneficial if I would work at a company with ties to Germany, Tepes said. I also may decide to work in a lab in Germany eventually.

The English Teaching Assistant Programs place Fulbright recipients in classrooms abroad to assist local English teachers. ETAs help teach English language while serving as cultural ambassadors for the United States. The age and academic level of the students vary by country, ranging from kindergarten to university level. Applicants for ETA Programs can apply to only one country.

Susquehanna has a program dedicated to assisting students in applying for prestigious scholarship programs like the Fulbright. That program is led by Karol Weaver, professor of history. Tepes was also assisted by Martina Kolb, associate professor of German studies and Winifred and Gustave Weber Professor in the Humanities; Michael Parra, assistant professor of chemistry; and Bob Jordan, head tennis coach.

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Senior Awarded Fulbright to Germany Susquehanna University - Susquehanna University

CI MED Students Win Top Honors At Startup Showcase at … – Carle Illinois College of Medicine

A team from Carle Illinois College of Medicines (CI MED) biomedical pre-incubation program AxisMED earned top honors at The Grainger College of Engineerings Startup Showcase at Engineering Open House.

The Startup Showcase, sponsored by iVenture Accelerator, celebrates student entrepreneurs. The event includes a pitch competition, where the more than 20 teams pitched ideas theyve been working on in a rapid-fire session.

First place went to Neuronetix, an AxisMED team working on a device to quantify a concussion diagnosis. The team includes CI MED first-year students Neddie Byron and Alexa Lauinger and undergraduate student Adrianna Ramos, a junior in biochemistry.

The problem right now is that most of concussion diagnosis involves self-reporting symptoms so right in that moment how are you feeling and this is a particular problem for athletes because they want to get back into the game, said Byron. They dont want to have to sit out for a certain amount of time, so they tend to downplay their symptoms.

A common protocol for concussion treatment and diagnosis is a system called the ImPACT test, a baseline cognitive exam. Athletes take a baseline test at the beginning of a season and if they suffer a head injury, they take the test again to see whether there is cognitive impairment.

The number of people weve talked to that have said that yeah I know people that purposely did poorly on the baseline, so that if they had a head injury, theyd look fine, is astounding. We are looking to overcome that issue with this quantifiable test,Byron said.

Neuronetixs solution is to create a metric using a blood test to determine fast and accurately whether a concussion has occurred. We are going to be using a tool similar to a blood glucose monitor for diabetics in which you will take a simple finger prick, put it in the meter and it will read your blood for protein levels and determine whether you have a concussion or not, said Ramos. The opportunities of this solution are huge because this can go from the recreational level all the way up to pro sports levels.

Byron stressed that the risks of a concussion going undiagnosed and then an athlete to sustain a second hit are life-threatening. You have worse symptoms, longer recovery, it truly is a huge impact on your life and your recovery, Byron added. We want to remove the opportunity for that to happen.

Along with the first-place trophy, the team also received a $750 cash prize, which will go to funding rent for a lab space and starting their much-anticipated prototyping.

The positive feedback we received from the judges, our peers, and the community also gave us encouragement to continue moving forward with the project, said Byron.

AxisMEDs VOCA Health, also participated in the competition with its objective measurement platform designed to help users track and manage voice health over time regularly or upon onset of newly diagnosed voice disorder. The team is led by second-year med students Shreya Rangarajan and Michael Chen, former engineering team leader Bhargav Chandaka, and UIUC undergraduate engineering student Deepak Nair.

VOCA is set to advance vocal assessment techniques, based on an objective measure of voice quality that can be captured from virtually anywhere, without requiring an invasive procedure. Current assessment for patients with suspected voice disorders is based on subjective evaluations that often require several steps. It starts with a self-assessment but then can advance to medical assessment including a laryngoscopy. This invasive procedure can be painful and must be done in a doctors office.

Essentially the main problem that we identified was that a lot of the vocal metrics are actually very subjective, said Rangarajan. Usually, you would go to your health care professional, usually an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) physician or a speech and language pathologist; theyll give you a sheet of paper saying okay, how would you identify your voice today, so very subjective. Were looking at shifting the gears a little bit and looking at objective data as opposed to subjective. Were hoping to standardize how vocal health is treated over time.

Along with shifting gears from subjective to objective measurement,Rangarajan hopes VOCA will have impacts in reducing the barrier between the patient and the clinician, especially those in rural health areas.

This could also benefit many, many people, so not only singers, but teachers, newscasters, pretty much anyone who uses their voice for a living. If youre using your voice over time a lot, this can be a way to track [your voice health].

To read more about VOCA Health, click HERE.

AxisMED is a biomedical pre-incubation program intended to fill the gaps between a universitys academic resources and entrepreneurial accelerator programs by connecting students through interdisciplinary teams and the tools necessary to navigate early-stage medical ventures. AxisMEDs program strengthens the University of Illinois existing entrepreneurship ecosystem by establishing a new, accessible entry point for students to gain experience in medical entrepreneurship and innovation before pursuing further acceleration.

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CI MED Students Win Top Honors At Startup Showcase at ... - Carle Illinois College of Medicine

Gregory Bowman: Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor … – University of Pennsylvania

Gregory Bowman: Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor

Gregory R. Bowman, a pioneer of biophysics and data science, has been named a Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Bowman holds the Louis Heyman University Professorship, with joint appointments in the department of biochemistry and biophysics in the Perelman School of Medicine and the department of bioengineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

His research aims to combat global health threats like COVID-19 and Alzheimers disease by better understanding how proteins function and malfunction, especially through new computational and experimental methods that map protein structures. This understanding of protein dynamics can lead to effective new treatments for even the most seemingly resistant diseases.

Delivering the right treatment to the right person at the right time is vital to sustainingand savinglives, Penn President Liz Magill said. Greg Bowmans novel work holds enormous promise and potential to advance new forms of personalized medicine, an area of considerable strength for Penn. A gifted researcher and consummate collaborator, we are delighted to count him among our distinguished PIK University Professors.

Dr. Bowman comes to Penn from the Washington University School of Medicines department of biochemistry and molecular biophysics, where he has served on the faculty since 2014. He previously completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Bowmans research uses high-performance supercomputers for simulations that can better explain how mutations and disease change a proteins functions. These simulations are enabled in part through the innovative Folding@home project, which Dr. Bowman directs. Folding@home empowers anyone with a computer to run simulations alongside a consortium of universities, with more than 200,000 participants worldwide.

Greg Bowmans highly innovative work exemplifies the power of our interdisciplinary mission at Penn, Interim Provost Beth A. Winkelstein said. He brings together supercomputers, biophysics, and biochemistry to make a vital impact on public health. This brilliant fusion of methodsin the service of improving peoples lives around the worldwill be a tremendous model for the research of our faculty, students, and postdocs in the years ahead.

The Penn Integrates Knowledge program is a University-wide initiative to recruit exceptional faculty members whose research and teaching exemplify the integration of knowledge across disciplines. Penn Integrates Knowledge professors are appointed in at least two schools at Penn.

The Louis Heyman University Professorship is a gift of Stephen J. Heyman, a 1959 graduate of the Wharton School, and his wife, Barbara Heyman, in honor of Stephen Heymans uncle. Stephen Heyman is a University Emeritus Trustee and member of the School of Nursing Board of Advisors. He is a managing partner at Nadel and Gussman LLC in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

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The Columns W&L’s Jaden Keuhner ’24 Featured in WSLS 10 … – The Columns

By W&L News Office April 7, 2023

Jaden Keuhner 24, a biochemistry major at Washington and Lee University, was featured in a WSLS 10 News article titled Local college student raises money for Gold Star Memorial in Rockbridge County.

Keuhner was interviewed by the news station for his work in raising money to build the first Gold Star Memorial here in Lexington.

Its truly an honor, Keuhner said. These are incredible people; they are families who have paid the ultimate sacrifice. I see no better way in honoring them and their lost loved ones than trying to build the memorial and continue their family names.

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Obituary for Alison Lynn Smoot-Pierce, Conway, SC – Arkansas Online

Alison Lynn Smoot-Pierce passed away on March 29, 2023, of complications from cancer. Alison was born in Memphis, Tenn., and raised in Sheridan, Ark. She graduated with a degree in Chemistry from University of Arkansas Little Rock, and attended graduate school in San Antonio, Texas, where she earned a master's degree in Biochemistry.It was in Texas where Alison met and married Michael Pierce. Prior to moving to Conway, S.C., Alison and Michael lived in Rockville, Md., where she worked at the National Institutes of Health. Alison was a gifted scientist who took immense pride in her research and enjoyed the process and complexity of biology.It was in Maryland where their son Zachary (Zach) Nathaniel was born. Alison and her family moved to Conway, S.C., where she taught a variety of courses in Biology at Coastal Carolina University. Alison had many interests and passions including a love of animals, art, music, crafting and science fiction literature. Nothing made her prouder and more complete than the time she was able to spend with and raise her son.Alison is survived by her husband, Michael; and son, Zachary; mother, Joy Ann Smoot; sisters, Alana Smoot and LeAnn Waddle; and six nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be planned for a future date. In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to local humane society organizations.

Published April 6, 2023

OBITUARY SUBMITTED BY:Memoriams.com391 Inverness Parkway, Suite 300-B, Englewood, COE-mail: helpdesk@memoriams.comPhone: 877-705-4995

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Finding a way to combat long COVID – EurekAlert

A newstudyhas identified potential neurological biomarkers of long COVID-19 in nonhuman primates that may help physicians diagnose, monitor and treat this condition.

Over65 million peopleworldwide have developed long COVID after being infected with SARS-CoV-2, and cases are only becoming more common.Long COVIDsymptoms can last weeks, months or years. Even more perplexing is the fact that symptoms can vary widely between individuals and consist of any combination of fatigue, fever, chest pain, trouble breathing, neurological symptoms such as brain fog, and many more. Long COVID puts a gigantic burden on theU.S. healthcare system, and some doctors doubt the condition exists, leaving some patients unable to find care.

A team of researchers at Tulane University is trying to shed light on this condition and find tools to manage it. They published their work in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics.

Our primary goal was to better understand the inside of the brain after COVID infection, said Jia Fan, an assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology who oversaw the study. This understanding could provide a potential target to use in the clinic for long COVID evaluation and monitoring. We also thought this study may give us some clues to find a potential treatment strategy for long COVID in patients.

However, because long COVID can vary drastically between individuals, studying this disorder has been difficult for scientists and clinicians alike.

There's a very limited understanding of the neuropathogenesis of long COVID, Fan said. It is almost impossible to get any brain tissue or samples of any kind from patients that have mild symptoms or no long COVID symptoms because there is no reason for invasive procedures.

Therefore, the group turned to a nonhuman primate model of long COVID.

The team found that certain proteins associated with neurodegenerative disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, were elevated in the brain, cerebrospinal fluid and blood after SARS-CoV-2 infection even in nonhuman primates that showed mild or no symptoms. Maity explained that these elevated proteins indicate that the immune systems of the monkeys remained activated even after infection.

Our findings suggest that the major neurological complications are arising due to the body's natural immune defenses, Maity said. The immune system has a very important and significant impact on the neurological complications of COVID.

The next steps of the project involve validating the biomarkers the team identified in human samples such as blood, said Fan.

It is currently hard to score the severity of (long COVID) patient symptoms because they are based on self-reports, Fan said. If we can find a group of proteins in the blood associated with long COVID, this is a less invasive way to easily evaluate the severity of the long COVID patients. We hope what we started can provide a clue to find a potential treatment to better the long COVID patient experience.

About the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB): The ASBMB is a nonprofit scientific and educational organization with more than 12,000 members worldwide. Founded in 1906 to advance the science of biochemistry and molecular biology, the society publishes three peer-reviewed journals, advocates for funding of basic research and education, supports science education at all levels, and promotes the diversity of individuals entering the scientific workforce. For more information about the ASBMB, visitwww.asbmb.org.

Molecular & Cellular Proteomics

Experimental study

Animals

Cerebrospinal fluid protein markers indicate neuro-damage in SARS-CoV-2-infected non-human primates

29-Mar-2023

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Finding a way to combat long COVID - EurekAlert

New anticancer agent activated by ultrasound waves does not have strong side effects – News-Medical.Net

Chemotherapy treatments produce strong side effects. A new agent that accumulates in the tumor tissue and is activated there by ultrasound waves does not have this problem.

Platinum complexes are among the most commonly used drugs against cancer. They are successful, but have severe side effects. An international research team led by Dr. Johannes Karges from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has developed a complex that accumulates in tumor tissue and is activated thereby ultrasound waves. Its cell-damaging effect thus only unfolds where it is actually wanted.

Where previous studies relied on light activations that can only penetrate a few millimeters deep into the tissue, we have now developed a treatment method with ultrasound activation that penetrates several centimeters deep into the body."

Dr. Johannes Karges from the Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany

This could make treatment with few side effects possible even for large and deep-seated tumors. The researchers published their results in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition of 24 March 2023.

The platinum(II) complexes cisplatin, oxaliplatin and carboplatin are among the most commonly used cancer drugs. Their clinical success is offset by severe side effects, such as nausea, vomiting, kidney damage and bone marrow suppression. To overcome these limitations, major research efforts have been invested in the development of so-called platinum(IV) complex prodrugs over the past decades. "These prodrugs are stable and inactive, so they are completely harmless," explains Johannes Karges. "In healthy tissue, they are supposed to stay that way. In cancer tissue, however, they should be rapidly converted into the therapeutically active platinum(II) complexes."

Energy is required for the reduction of the metal complex. Previous studies reported activation with ultraviolet, blue or red light. "The problem is that light can only penetrate less than a centimeter deep into the body and thus does not reach many tumors," explains Johannes Karges. To overcome this limitation, his team has for the first time combined platinum(IV) complex prodrugs with sonosensitizers that can be selectively activated with ultrasound irradiation.

To develop a therapeutically effective complex, the researchers encapsulated the platinum(IV) complex prodrugs and the sonosensitizers together in hemoglobin to form nanoparticles. "We were able to observe that the nanoparticles selectively accumulated in a mouse intestinal tumor after injection into the bloodstream, thus supporting targeted treatment," reports Johannes Karges. "After irradiation with ultrasound, the platinum(IV) prodrug was activated at the tumor site, triggering the release of cisplatin, which is toxic to cells, and almost completely eradicating the tumor."

These results could pave the way for the development of novel techniques and agents for the treatment of very large or deep-seated tumors. Ultrasound can penetrate more than an order of magnitude deeper into tissue than near-infrared light. In addition, ultrasound treatments are generally considered to be less invasive and easy to use. Another advantage is that hospitals are usually already equipped with the necessary equipment. "Our work is still fundamental research," Johannes Karges emphasizes. "Whether and when treatments based on this can be offered in clinical practice is not yet foreseeable."

Source:

Journal reference:

Liang, G., et al. (2023). Reduction of Platinum(IV) Prodrug Hemoglobin Nanoparticles with DeeplyPenetrating Ultrasound Radiation for TumorTargeted Therapeutically Enhanced Anticancer Therapy. Angewandte Chemie International Edition. doi.org/10.1002/anie.202301074.

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High schoolers awarded for action research | Sioux Center News – nwestiowa.com

SIOUX CENTERA small group of high school students got their chance to pitch their science projects at the 2023 State Science Technology Fair of Iowa in Ames on Thursday and Friday.

Its all part of a new course called action research offered at Sioux Center High School.

Its individualized project-based learning, said science teacher Christine Brasser. The students need to create their own research project to do throughout the year. They start off with what are the things that I like, what are the things Im interested in, do I have any questions about those things? Then they build from there.

They then begin the work of applying the scientific method to those interests and budding questions by coming up with a question, hypothesis and a plan for how to gather the needed data. When a conclusion is eventually reached, they need to present that information.

I want them to be able to ask good questions, analyze data and come to their own conclusions. I think the biggest thing in this class is the ability to look at everyday things with a scientific perspective, Brasser said. Looking at data and knowing what makes for good data, good data sources and how its collected is important. During your life, you might not think of using the scientific method, but you can use it without really thinking about it.

The parameters the students have to work with when coming up with a project topic are simple enough: The question they investigate must be able to be tested and something based in typical life.

One of my students is testing supplements, what are in these supplements that are not regulated. Another one is about protein in corn. Its real-life questions that people might be interested in knowing the answer to, she said.

As part of the research, the students reach out to experts who can help provide data or guide their research. This helps the students learn communication skills as they send out e-mail, make phone calls and ask questions.

Those might seem simple for the average adult, but for high school kids, that can be very intimidating, she said. One student was on a Zoom call with a professor from South Dakota State University, and hed never met him in person. Its really good to see these kids grow by having to do these things.

Its also been an exercise in working with deadlines, with time frames for when students should develop their topic idea and hypothesis, conducting their studies and gathering data and so on.

For the end of the class, the students create a professional poster displaying and explaining their project in detail so it can be used in the state science fair competition.

Since this is a new class, its beginning small, with four students, which Brasser said has been a good number to start with.

Its a class Ive always wanted to offer but we didnt have the periods open, she said. With the addition of a fourth science teacher, we were able to offer this class. For next year, I think our enrollment will be closer to 10 or 12.

In the meantime, she has been excited to see her class get ready for the State Science Technology Fair of Iowa. Judges review the submitted projects, which are categorized into 12 different fields of biological or physical sciences. Topic areas include animal and plant science, biochemistry, microbiology, energy and transportation, chemistry and computer science, robotics and intelligent machines.

Im excited for them to compete, Brasser said, and that Sioux Center is able to add this to the list of the many great things we can offer for kids.

For the state science fair, Sioux Center students Everett Fedders and William Hurst won scholarship dollars for their work. Fedders won a $1,000 scholarship award to Loras College and $2,000 scholarship award to Northwestern College in Orange City for microbiology. Hurst won a $2,000 scholarship award to Northwestern for biochemistry.

As part of the concurrently held Iowa FFA AgriScience Fair, Fedders won second place in the food products and processing systems division and Hannah Woudstra won first place in the plant systems division of the concurrent Iowa FFA Agriscience Fair.

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Emory researchers discover key pathway for COVID-19 organ … – Emory News Center

Even after three years since the emergence of COVID-19, much remains unknown about how it causes severe disease, including the widespread organ damage beyond just the lungs. Increasingly, scientists are learning that organ dysfunction results from damage to the blood vessels, but why the virus causes this damage is unclear. Now a multidisciplinary team of Emory researchers has discovered what they believe is the key molecular pathway.

Results of their study, published today in Nature Communications, show that COVID-19 damages the cells lining the smallest blood vessels, choking off blood flow. These results could pave the way for new treatments to save lives at a time when hundreds of people are still dying from COVID-19 each day.

Doctors at Emory started this study in the early days of the pandemic to better understand drivers of severe COVID-19 and why adults develop severe disease more often than children. They used a so-called multi-omics approach, studying multiple data sets at once, to examine the biochemistry of blood from COVID-19 patients and compared it to non-COVID-19 patients, looking for clues.

We were surprised by the little overlap between our adult and pediatric patients, says Cheryl Maier, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, and the studys senior author. Both groups had abnormalities related to clotting, but one unique pathway that stood out in the adults was related to vessel health and blood flow.

Maier says this finding was particularly interesting given their clinical observations that blood from patients severely ill with COVID-19 was unusually viscous: think maple syrup rather than water.

Maier worked with collaborator and co-senior author Wilbur Lam, professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University and in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University, to create cutting-edge models of the smallest blood vessels, expected to be the most sensitive to altered blood flow, which allowed them to visualize how blood from COVID-19 patients versus other patients might be flowing in the human body.

Watching videos from these microfluidic devices is like seeing how COVID-19 might be affecting our blood vessels in real time, Maier says. These lab-made blood vessels are lined with real human vascular cells, called endothelial cells. You can put in plasma and red cells, any of the key components of blood and in different combinations, to watch how it behaves and see how the damage happens.

Since the earliest days of the pandemic, physicians have seen that a blood protein called fibrinogen was extremely elevated in patients with severe COVID-19. This protein is often elevated in other acute illnesses, but the elevations seen in the sickest COVID-19 patients were much higher. The body forms blood clots in part by cutting fibrinogen to form fibrin, a key component of clots, but fibrinogen itself is not thought to form clots and levels are not affected by anticlotting medications. But the Emory researchers found that in COVID-19 patients, the sky-high levels of fibrinogen cause red blood cells to clump together, altering blood flow and directly damaging the endothelial glycocalyx, a gelatinous protective layer lining the microvessels.

Fibrinogen is one of the top three most abundant proteins in plasma, Maier says. Its been hiding in plain sight.

When the researchers combined plasma from COVID-19 patients with red blood cells in lab-made blood vessels, they could visualize the cellular aggregation and quantify the destruction of the endothelial cell glycocalyx. You have these large clusters of red cells that are all stuck together, Maier says. Normally this wouldnt happen. Capillaries are so narrow that red blood cells must pass through single file. But in COVID, these aggregates stick together even under flow. Its easy to imagine how this mechanically damages the microvasculature.

Much of the new technology was developed by study co-first author Elizabeth Iffrig, MD, PHD, a critical care fellow in Emorys Department of Medicine. The foundation of what we did was looking at how red blood cells would form these big globules that would gunk up the microvascular system, Iffrig says. Our methodology let us look at this in a dynamic process, seeing what happens to these aggregates as we mimic a true physiologic state of blood flow instead of just suspending them in a fluid and measuring how big they are. The methodology allowed us to quantify all those things simultaneously.

Taken together, these data suggest to Maier that the fibrinogen-induced red blood cell aggregation and resulting microvascular damage could be the major pathway by which COVID causes organ damage and even death. Theres presently no medications targeting high fibrinogen in the blood. However the team has done exploratory research using therapeutic plasma exchange: removing plasma with high fibrinogen from COVID-19 patients and replacing it with donor plasma that has normal fibrinogen levels. Maier thinks her teams discovery is critical because it provides a target that might help save lives.

Additional key members of the research team include co-first author Sam Druzak, PhD, and co-senior author Eric Ortlund, PhD, professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Emory University.

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