A Miniaturized Platform for Investigating the Strength of Thrombus Induced by Blood Shear Rates

This paper introduces a novel approach to measuring thrombus strength by inducing clot formation under pathological shear rates and performing tensile testing on a microfluidic chip. Previous studies primarily relied on adding catalysts like thrombin or allowing natural clot aggregation, which differs from in-vivo thrombus formation. Here, a microscale platform enables the formation of thrombus in a controlled shear environment and allows tensile testing directly on fresh clots, providing physical property data in reduced time. This innovation offers insights into thrombus formation mechanisms and therapeutic strategies for thrombosis and embolism.