Flow-based Assays for Trauma and Transfusion Medicine Applications

Susan M. Shea, PhD
Assistant Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering
Trauma and Transfusion Medicine Research Center
University of Pittsburgh

Abstract:  In the US, over 30,000 people die each year due to traumatic injury that could have been saved if they had received more timely or appropriate care. Further exacerbating poor clinical outcomes is a unique acute coagulopathy induced by injury itself, which increases mortality risk by 400%. Improving outcomes for these patients is a complex problem as there are multiple contributing factors to each individual’s pathophysiology. In addition, the treatment for bleeding in trauma is to transfuse blood products, which also come with their own distinct mechanistic changes due to both material surface interactions and extended storage outside of the body. This seminar will focus on the use of microfluidics to better understand traumatic coagulopathy and its treatments, including blood product function, and will also discuss philosophies and approaches surrounding clinically translational research and spaces.

Bio:  Dr. Shea is a bioengineer in the Department of Surgery. Dr. Shea received her Ph.D. from Georgia Institute of Technology in Bioengineering and completed postgraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine. She focuses on highly clinically translatable problems, and specifically utilizes microfluidic models to study hemostasis in the context of trauma and transfusion medicine. Dr. Shea’s research examines how traumatic injury induces platelet dysfunction, and the role of platelet dysfunction in systemic coagulopathy. To do so, Dr. Shea develops physiologically-fidelic microfluidic assays and platforms to simulate biomechanics and fluid dynamics of vessel injury ex vivo. These same tools are also employed to study the hemostatic efficacy of novel and existing blood products, as well as other treatments and approaches to rescue hemostatic dysfunction, with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes. Dr. Shea is also interested in arterial thrombosis and thrombolysis. Arterial thrombosis causes myocardial infarction and ischemic stroke, which are two of the leading causes of death in the United States. Dr. Shea also employs microfluidics to study novel approaches to prevent and treat ischemic thrombosis.