May 2, 2012 Having a virtual copy of a patient's blood in a
computer would be a boon to researchers and doctors. They could
examine a simulated heart attack caused by blood clotting in a
diseased coronary artery and see if a drug like aspirin would be
effective in reducing the size of such a clot. Now, a team of
biomedical engineers and hematologists at the University of
Pennsylvania has made large-scale, patient-specific simulations
of blood function under the flow conditions found in blood
vessels, using robots to run hundreds of tests on human
platelets responding to combinations of activating agents that
cause clotting. Their work was published in the journal Blood.
Patient-specific information on how platelets form blood clots
can be a vital part of care. Normally, clots prevent bleeding,
but they can also cause heart attacks when they form in plaque-
laden coronary arteries. Several drugs, including aspirin, are
used to reduce the size of such clots and prevent heart attacks,
but, as platelets differ fro