COVID-19

In the last five to 10 years, scientists have begun to understand that platelets play a role in promoting unwanted clotting and inflammation in other diseases such as HIV, psoriasis, lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis. These tiny round blood cells serve one major purpose: to stop bleeding by binding to a damaged blood vessel and forming a clot. With that in mind, Jeffrey Berger, director of New York University Langone's Centre for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, and a team of researchers set out to investigate what role the platelets might play in COVID-19. In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers showed that the virus can enter megakaryocytes, the bone marrow cells that make platelets. The infected cells then alter the genetic material in the platelets so that they become more active and give off protein signals that make the lining of the blood vessels sticky and inflamed. This makes the vessels prone to developing clots that can spread throughout the body.