ERC Starting Grant - Thrombotic memory-linking a break in tolerance to platelets to rethrombosis (T-MEMORE)
- Project leader: Prof. Dr. Konstantin Stark
- Affiliation: Department of Medicine I
- Funding: 2020 to 2025
In his ERC project on “Thrombotic Memory – Linking a Break in Tolerance to Platelets to Rethrombosis” (acronym: T-MEMORE), Stark will test the hypothesis that thrombosis triggers an immune response to activated platelets, which in turn leads to chronic inflammation that promotes future thrombotic episodes. This would explain why patients who have already suffered a thrombotic event are at high risk of recurrent thrombosis. To reduce this risk, the current standard of care involves the use of anticoagulants, which must be carefully monitored. Stark‘s project will examine whether local clot formation results in a systemic immunological memory effect, which is ultimately responsible for recurrent localized blood coagulation. To detect and elucidate this putative memory effect, Stark will make use of innovative in-vivo imaging techniques to visualize cellular interactions in the bone marrow, the spleen, and the liver. In addition, he intends to use clinically relevant experimental models to explore the potential of targeted strategies for the inhibition of thrombus formation, aiming to develop personalized therapies that reliably prevent the recurrence of intravascular thrombi.
Konstantin Stark studied Medicine at the Technical University of Munich, obtaining his doctoral degree there in 2012. He then joined the staff of the Department of Cardiology in Medical Clinic I on LMU’s Grosshadern Campus, and has headed a research group devoted to the elucidation of “Mechanisms of Sterile Inflammation in Cardiovascular Diseases“ since 2019.
Source: LMU