Major research grant awarded to improve understanding of blood clotting

The £1 million project has been funded by a prestigious UKRI Medical Research Council Career Development Award and aims to transform how bleeding trauma patients are treated in the UK and beyond.

Traumatic injury causes an estimated 6 million deaths globally every year and is the leading cause of preventable death in people under 44. A significant proportion of these deaths occur within the first six hours of injury due to uncontrolled bleeding. Dr Gael Morrow’s research focuses on a key component of the body’s clotting system, the fibrinolysis pathway, which fails during TIC.

Work on the five-year international project began in February with RGU collaborating with The University of Oxford, The University of Aberdeen, The University of Cambridge, Monash University, Gold Coast University Hospital, Defence Science & Technology Laboratory, NHSBT and NHS Grampian.

Dr Morrow, Senior Research Fellow at RGU’s School of Pharmacy, Applied Sciences and Public Health, said: “Approximately 25% of trauma patients die within six hours of injury from uncontrolled bleeding, due to this clotting abnormality called TIC. TIC describes the overall failure of the blood clotting system to stop bleeding after injury.

“My research will investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms that are responsible for the uncontrolled bleeding. A greater understanding of TIC will allow clinicians to direct effective treatments, significantly improving patient outcomes and survival, resulting in a reduction in the number of deaths from TIC annually.

“The work will move the trauma field forward by addressing critical gaps in our current understanding and will also create significant interest from the haemostasis and thrombosis community, as well as its neighbours in trauma surgery, transfusion medicine and obstetrics.”

Dr Morrow has over a decade of experience in haemostasis and thrombosis, and six years dedicated to trauma research and has already spent time in Queensland, Australia as part of the project. Dr Morrow visited Dr James Winearls, Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine and Chief Investigator of the FEISTY II trauma clinical trial, at Gold Coast University Hospital. During her visit, Dr Morrow collected blood samples from trauma patients recruited to the FEISTY II studyto monitor changes in tiny blood cells, platelets, and investigate how platelets influence the fibrinolysis pathway during TIC.

UKRI Medical Research Council Career Development Award supports postdoctoral researchers to make the transition to independent researcher by developing leadership in their own specialist area of research and establishing their own research team.