Imaging Profiling Platform for Thrombotic Disease

Dr Qian Su, University of Technology Sydney

2019 Postdoctoral Fellowship

Years funded: 2020-2022

Platelets play a crucial role in blood clot formation, causing heart attack and thrombotic disease, the No.1 killer in Australia. Platelet integrin and its signalling pathways are important targets for the existing anti-thrombotic drugs. However, severe bleeding side-effects greatly reduce the usage of these drugs. The development of technologies to characterise and profile blood clotting will accelerate the process of finding more effective diagnostic and therapeutic solutions. This fellowship project aims to deliver new methodologies for characterising, identifying and monitoring the thrombotic disease. By leveraging cutting edge imaging techniques into clinically relevant models, a map of signalling pathway during thrombus formation will be demonstrated.

The imaging platform will be the first-of-its-kind in Australia. It will not only decipher the platelet interactome but will allow the assessment of better diagnostic and safer therapy for the thrombotic disease. This project focuses on thrombotic diseases related therapeutic areas of high unmet medical need by combining my innovative Super-Resolution imaging platform and deep knowledge in platelet integrin biology. A strong alliance between University of Technology Sydney, University of Sydney, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Janelia Research Campus/UC Berkeley (US) will provide unparalleled know-how and experience and enabled the formation and advancement of an exciting portfolio of transformative integrin-based therapies. The platform and the gained knowledge will evaluate the performance of novel anti-thrombotic drugs that are currently under clinical trials. This platform may not only change the current read-out for blood tests but has the potential to improve the prediction and therapy for thrombotic disease in clinical trials.