"Assembly and Destruction of Von Willebrand Factor in Human Disease"

Dr. Sadler is an HHMI Investigator and Professor of Medicine and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. 

His laboratory studies the pathophysiology of hemorrhage and thrombosis, focusing on the mechanisms that promote and inhibit platelet adhesion.  Von Willebrand factor (VWF) is a multimeric protein that mediates platelet adhesion to sites of vascular injury and stabilizes blood coagulation factor VIII; these interactions are essential for hemostasis. Von Willebrand disease (VWD) is caused by deficiency of VWF, and is the most common inherited bleeding disorder. Specific domains of VWF interact with platelet receptor proteins, and binding is regulated allosterically. A single VWF multimer can be enormous, up to 100 micrometers in length, and the largest multimers are the most hemostatically active. Dr. Sadler's lab is investigating the mechanism of VWF multimer assembly and the regulation of VWF binding to its receptors on platelets.

To learn more about his research, please visit his website: http://hematology.wustl.edu/faculty/sadler/sadlerBio.html.

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