Donut Diving: An image informatic approach to platelet behaviour in the growing thrombus

In her interdisciplinary research, Abigail explored how platelets coordinate in time and space to build a blood clot. She developed new computational tools to explore clot formation in unprecedented detail in vivo. Her main finding was that platelets arrange themselves into a ring – or donut shape – over the area of vessel injury before forming a complete clot. To fill the donut, platelets climb up and dive into the centre. She found that this ‘Donut Diving’ was related to key platelet signalling networks and was associated with clot stability and growth. This research furthers our understanding of platelet behaviour in clots.